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Jobs Unfazed by Zune

Posted by Hemos on Mon Oct 16, 2006 10:22 AM
from the well-he-would-say-that dept.
Media Media (Apple)
twofish writes "In an interview at Newsweek marking the approaching 5th anniversary of the launch of the iPod, Apple CEO Steve Jobs seems unconcerned by Microsoft's wannabe iPod killer Zune. Earphone sharing will prove a more potent force for social networking than the iPod rival's wireless song-sharing feature, he reckons. 'I've seen the demonstrations on the internet about how you can find another person using a Zune and give them a song they can play three times. It takes forever,' he says in the article. 'By the time you've gone through all that, the girl's got up and left! You're much better off to take one of your earbuds out and put it in her ear. Then you're connected with about two feet of headphone cable.'"
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  • In other news ... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Bewbewbew (871127) on Monday October 16 2006, @10:25AM (#16452321) Homepage
    Teenage girls all over America issue restraining orders against Steve Jobs, related to his attempts to "share his earphones" with them.

  • The master has spoken... (Score:5, Funny)

    by creimer (824291) on Monday October 16 2006, @10:25AM (#16452325) Homepage
    'By the time you've gone through all that, the girl's got up and left! You're much better off to take one of your earbuds out and put it in her ear. Then you're connected with about two feet of headphone cable.'

    Dating advice for using the iPod?! Let's see Bill Gates top that with the Zune!

  • How Is This News? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by eldavojohn (898314) * <my/.username@@@gmail.com> on Monday October 16 2006, @10:26AM (#16452327) Homepage Journal
    Apple: Jobs Unfazed by Zune ... from the well-he-would-say-that dept.
    How is this news?

    Of course he's 'unfazed' by the Zune. He sits atop a company that currently has massive (and, more importantly, very loyal) fanbase in both computers and portable media players.

    Microsoft is new to this market and I doubt jobs will be afraid of anybody (even Microsoft) in this market. Hell, I'll bet Jobs isn't even concerned about iRiver's or Sony's products even though they seem to have been in the market longer.

    What was he supposed to do? Halt all production and support of iPods at the sight of the Zune and declare that he's beaten? Is he supposed to assume the fetal position and cower and cry when he hears the word 'Zune?' Retreat to the northern woods where he trains night and day so that one day he might come back and beat Microsoft in some other fashion?

    I would be shocked if Jobs said anything otherwise. What's our next headline for Slashdot? Is it going to be "Steve Ballmer's Kids Love Zune"? What about "Jobs Says New Mac Models Are Good"? You gotta keep up those hard hitting headlines.

    The questions in this article are laughable! Interviewer: "Jobs, I've pitched you so many softball questions but in an effort to pitch you another, how can the iPod lose its popularity with Dick Cheney and Queen Elizabeth owning one?" Jobs: "It can't, but let me attempt to be modest as you pop a woody for me." Interviewer: "I know you've only sold millions of iPods so let me attempt to further illustrate how great it is, will it always be about the music?" Jobs: "It's about whatever makes it sell the most."

    Stop humping his leg!

    I think the only way you could worry Jobs is if you made a media device that physically pleasures the user (with nods to Stanislaw Lem). Although Jobs could just fire back that the video playing iPod requires some effort but can meet the same needs.
    • How is this news?

      I would be shocked if Jobs said anything otherwise. What's our next headline for Slashdot? Is it going to be "Steve Ballmer's Kids Love Zune"? What about "Jobs Says New Mac Models Are Good"? You gotta keep up those hard hitting headlines.

      How is this news? Simple: By reading between the lines.

      Every company delivers the same BS of, "We think our competitor provides no real challenge in the market." But if you actually listen to what they're saying, you can hear what they really think about it. Sort of like how Ballmer's denials of Google's importance always come across as, "I want to throw a f#@$ing CHAIR at those Google DEVELOPERS, DEVELOPERS, DEVELOPERS!"

  • Add feature when they can make them work. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by jellomizer (103300) * on Monday October 16 2006, @10:29AM (#16452377)
    Apples Strength is that they tend to only add features that people really need and can use. Microsoft just takes whatever people complain about not having and shove it in there doesn't matter if it is really useful or not. Apple knows that people wants wireless access to their iPod but apple won't put it in there until they can find a way to make it right, so it is actually a benefit vs. an expensive feature that people won't use, more then just past the for 1/2 hour for the ohhs and ahhs.
    Lets take a look at virtual screens. OS X is just releasing this as a new feature in its OS next year, Unix/Linux has had this feature for decades. Why now did apple finally release it. Well because there is enough CPU/GPU power to make it so people can understand it and not call and complain about there windows being missing. Or not seeing where they put what. It is about not releasing a feature until it can be made useful. Not just putting in a feature half hazardly jest because people who like buzzwords say they want it.
    • Apples Strength is that they tend to only add features that people really need and can use. Microsoft just takes whatever people complain about not having and shove it in there doesn't matter if it is really useful or not. Apple knows that people wants wireless access to their iPod but apple won't put it in there until they can find a way to make it right, so it is actually a benefit vs. an expensive feature that people won't use, more then just past the for 1/2 hour for the ohhs and ahhs.
      Lets take a look at virtual screens. OS X is just releasing this as a new feature in its OS next year, Unix/Linux has had this feature for decades. Why now did apple finally release it. Well because there is enough CPU/GPU power to make it so people can understand it and not call and complain about there windows being missing. Or not seeing where they put what. It is about not releasing a feature until it can be made useful. Not just putting in a feature half hazardly jest because people who like buzzwords say they want it.


      I like your points. It brings to mind two students that have to write a term paper that has to be 50 pages. One student fills it with crap and changes the font size and spacing until it reaches that 50 pages, thereby fullfilling the minimum. The other student ignores the 50 page requirement and just researches the subject and writes until the paper makes sense. The teacher with any brains (or interest in the subject matter) is going to grade the second student higher. Not all teachers have any brains. Big corporations and especially governments won't take anything other than 50 pages and won't really read it anyway.

      Apple did its homework with the iPod and worked hard for that A. Microsoft glanced over to copy as much as it could, slapped something together, put a pretty font on it, slapped some stickers on it and put it in a nice brown binder. Microsoft gets the C.

  • Huh? (Score:5, Funny)

    by iworm (132527) on Monday October 16 2006, @10:31AM (#16452403)
    You're much better off to take one of your earbuds out and put it in her ear.

    Why not just keep both earbuds where they are, enjoy the music, and still stick it in her ear? Or am I misunderstanding something here...?

    • Re:Huh? (Score:5, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 16 2006, @10:47AM (#16452631)
      I think you're missing an R near the end of your first sentence. That's okay, though, as the sentence parses correctly when spoken aloud.

  • Apple being unfazed (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Grahl (8946) on Monday October 16 2006, @10:31AM (#16452421) Homepage
    Wasn't there a time when Apple was unfazed by IBM-PCs? :>

  • Zune's wifi sharing = Palm's Business Card Beaming (Score:5, Insightful)

    by d0n quix0te (304783) on Monday October 16 2006, @10:36AM (#16452495)
    Just as geeky as the 90's version of uncool, tragically unhip, business dudes and engineers beaming business cards to each other. The novelty will wear off after 2 tries. The only people who will do it are going to be geeks... Oh wait, the geeks are going to buy an Ogg Vorbis player made by a Taiwanese company that nobody's heard off....

    The only people who will use this feature are going to be the dorks working in Microsoft's Zune division who came up with this non-feature... well, at least until they get laid off....

    • Re:Zune's wifi sharing = Palm's Business Card Beam (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Slurms (144553) on Monday October 16 2006, @10:54AM (#16452729)
      Wireless sharing for the Zune is not about sharing songs with a girl in a bar. It is entirely about giving Starbucks a means for sending you commercials disguised as "zune-casts" when you walk into their shop.
    • There's nothing cool about handing out business cards whether it's physical paper or digital data. Cool isn't even on the screen.

      Beaming cards was mainstream... I had a wrecker driver wave a palm at me when he was towing my car in 2000... until the iPaq finally got a fast enough processor in the ARM to make Microsoft's handheld OS usable, and Palm lost the plot and tried to turn the Palm into the same kind of "laptop replacement" device Microsoft was pushing. Pocket PCs wrecked beaming.

      Why?

      The Pocket PC makes beaming business cards a cumbersome trial that only the geeky can handle. You had to navigate multiple menus, switch modes in the receiving device, and wait, and wait. The Palm made it simple and automatic... just hold one button down and it Just Works, and works *quickly*.

      So the question is... will the Zune make beaming music "a cumbersome trial" or "simple and automatic"? How long will it take?

  • Uploading not Sharing (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Peregr1n (904456) <ian.a.ferguson@gmail.com> on Monday October 16 2006, @11:04AM (#16452859) Homepage
    I think Steve Job has intentionally missed the point. Yes, the whole sharing thing is pointless and won't be used. But Wi-Fi will be the future (hopefully for iPods too) for uploading music to the device and playing back to speakers.

    For example, I play music from my MacBook wirelessly to my speakers through my AirPort Express (yes, I'm an Apple fanboy) a lot. I really wish I could do the same, but from my iPod, so I don't have to power up the MacBook. If iPod had Wi-Fi - ta da! Problem solved.

    I think Steve knows this is the future but is spreading a little FUD about the Zune. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if the next generation of video iPod has wi-fi - carefully timed to arrive with the iTV - so it can play video wirelessly too. It's the next logical step.

  • The dangers of icky ear buds (Score:5, Funny)

    by dpbsmith (263124) on Monday October 16 2006, @11:06AM (#16452879) Homepage
    If I were Ballmer, I would seek out an opportunity to comment on the doubtless many medical studies that have shown that ear wax, mites, bacteria, Avian flu virus, cooties, parasites, AIDS, those icky crayfish-like ear thingies from "Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan," the gay gene, and terrist nucular WMD materials remain on ear bud surfaces, no matter how clean they seem to be.
    • Good comments, but Jobs does have his own bits of doublespeak. When he says that customers aren't asking for compatibility he's either defining his terms VERY carefully or he's in denial.

      On the other hand he can't say "we can't adopt Microsoft's proprietary DRM instead of our own proprietary DRM because: (A) Microsoft will crush us, and (B) Microsoft's DRM is too effective for customers to put up with... the main reason we can get away with what we're doing in the iTunes Store is because everyone knows our DRM is little more than 'honor system'."

      Though it would be refreshing to hear that/ He could go on with "You know, back before we introduced DRM I pointed out that DRM is basically impossible to make more than 'honor system' anyway, and our success really proves how right I was."

    • Re:Incredible Speaker (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Mr. Underbridge (666784) on Monday October 16 2006, @10:39AM (#16452527)

      *Sigh* Another victim of the Reality Distortion Field (TM).

      You know, he's got a point. It might seem very impressive in a geeky way to Zuma a file across the room to the pretty girl (if you don't mind that I just used "Zuma" as a verb), but she is definitely not going to be impressed unless she's also a geek. You've also got the matter of the song being played in a vacuum, where your own thoughts and feelings on the tune are missing. Thus it holds no meaning. Besides, pod-jacking gives you a much better chance of being able to talk to that pretty girl. ;-)

      You know damned well that when (not if) iPod comes out with wireless, his tune on that will change in a hurry. Kind of like Intel was slow until Apple was using it.

      Of course, he'll have an answer about how impersonal wireless was until Apple did it. And he'll be partly right. But for now, wireless is a Zuma advangage - right now, the guy can podjack (zumajack?) the pretty girl, then when she likes the song, he can Zuma it to her. That would be pretty cool. MS should let users associate a text message with the song, that would be better. Also, would be even cooler if it didn't disappear immediately, but whatever.

      I like my iPod and my powerbook, but Steve's just a little *too* slick for me. It makes me not trust anything he says, whether he's right or wrong, simply because if you let yourself get caught up in his spin, you *will* believe whatever he says.

      • Re:Incredible Speaker (Score:5, Insightful)

        by rlthomps-1 (545290) on Monday October 16 2006, @10:55AM (#16452737) Homepage
        You're actually missing Steve's point. He's not saying wireless sharing of music isn't a useful feature, he's saying that it's too complicated to be useful right now. So yes, he'll change his tune but only after Apple finds a way to do it "right".

        • Re:Incredible Speaker (Score:5, Informative)

          by shashi (56458) on Monday October 16 2006, @11:21AM (#16453085) Homepage

          That's basically what Jobs has done all along. He's shown that he's never one to completely disregard in the future what doesn't work today. He's just a perfectionist and doesn't want to throw in the latest bells and whistles until he feels it is ready for your everyday user to consume. That's one thing that Microsoft doesn't get—they want the most features possible and so they end up releasing a lot of stuff, that while it sounds cool, often doesn't work as advertised until a couple of service packs later.

          I also wanted to address a point from the grandparent, which your point actually addresses (albeit a little broadly):

          You know damned well that when (not if) iPod comes out with wireless, his tune on that will change in a hurry. Kind of like Intel was slow until Apple was using it.

          That's a bit of a misinformed statement. Intel was slow. PowerPC was kicking Intel ass up through the early G4's. Unfortunately, IBM didn't keep up with R&D for their consumer PowerPC chips to stay competitive with Intel. So, like a good businessman, Jobs did was right for the consumer and switched his product to use the more competitive parts.

          I assure you that once Steve Jobs feels the time is right for things like iPod wireless, or iPhone, or whatever else "everyone" is clamoring for, he'll do it.

      • Re:Incredible Speaker (Score:5, Informative)

        by jamesmrankinjr (536093) on Monday October 16 2006, @11:05AM (#16452867) Homepage

        And you better believe Microsoft would weep with joy if people started using "Zune" as a verb.

        The correct verb form of "Zune" is "squirt".

        Usage:

        I want to squirt you a picture of my kids. You want to squirt me back a video of your vacation.

        http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/o ct2006/tc20061011_940241.htm

        Peace be with you,
        -jimbo

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