Latest Zune Commercial Claims It Costs $30,000 to Fill An iPod [SNAKEOIL]

Pete Mortensen ()

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MICROSOFT SPOKESMAN: Hi — you look dumb. Would you like me to advance the dumbest possible argument for Zune ownership? See, it’s like this: iPods, though they’re really cool, cost money to get music on them! So you should pay a $15 monthly subscription for Zune music, which is basically free! You can trust me — I’m a financial planner. People in finance have never misled anyone!

APPLE BLOGGER: I had a music collection long before the iPod existed, dumbass. And who on earth owns an iPod classic these days?

YouTube via Ars via Engadget via Giz

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About the author

Petemortensen

Pete Mortensen is a design strategist for consulting firm Jump Associates and the co-author of Wired to Care: How Companies Prosper When They Create Widespread Empathy, a book and blog that are significantly more interesting than you might initially think. Pete's particular Apple avocations are both around design--interface and industrial. Follow him on Twitter!

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Posted in Advertising, iPod, Top stories |

  • Shawen Donnellan

    I own an iPod Classic and will continue to do so until Apple has an iPod touch with at least 120Gb of storage.

    Shawen

  • Brian

    It is amazing how advertisers take something which is actually factual, and leave out the common sense part of the equation. No one would buy a 120 Gig iPod if they didn’t ALREADY own a ton of music, or have another use for the extra space – like transporting files. Myself, I own one of the short-lived 160 Gig iPods and it holds less than half of my 5000 CD/LP collection. I wish they would put out a 500 Gig iPhone!

  • Tim

    So nobody has a Classic. OK.

    We’ll use it with a 16 GB iPod.

    Zune Pass = $14.99 / month, plus you get to keep 10 songs per month permanently.

    iTunes = $3960.

  • Steve in Australia

    Microsoft have made the same assumption as your Apple Blogger. People are not necessarily buying the iPod Classic to store just music. The larger storage allows room for a decent sized photo or video library or even as a back up drive for important files from their computer.

    I know one audiophile who bought a 160Gb Classic so they could store their music in an uncompressed format.

    One thing is for sure, Microsoft, or anyone believes this fud, are dumbasses.

  • MacSheikh

    Ah…the smell of desperation. So early in the morning, too. :-)

  • http://www.macgasm.net Joshua Schnell

    Another Mac Blogger: Who invited the douchy Spokesmen to the party?

  • Kristen

    I remember seeing this same style ad in magazines when the first monthly service come out. Doesn’t anyone know you don’t have to spend a dime on music to get it on your iPod? I have an iPod classic only because I need the capacity for my large library – most of which is imported CDs i ALREADY OWN! I have only bought maybe $100 worth of music on iTunes since getting it about 5 years ago. This is just absurd. and how many months does does the contract require one have to pay $15 for before not having to do THAT anymore? no contracts with iTunes. Microsoft must really think they are talking to the dumbest people ever. also, are tv, movies, videos, and games even available for Zune (i’m talking ones worth paying for)?

  • http://www.otheroom.com Barry Wood

    Are they still making Zunes? Wow, you learn something new every day.

  • Darcy McGee

    Your last point is rather silly, and your rebuttal lacks grace and makes you seem ignorant.

  • http://searchjaywontdartoniTunesformypodcast jaywontdart

    im going to buy an iPod Classic you insensitive git, just as soon as the next Apple event is all over. I listen to so many podcasts, and dont delete listened to episodes (No Agenda, Daily Source Code), that my 30GB 5G iPod is just not sufficient! I almost NEVER listen to music anymore, i listen to podcasts for a couple hours a day while I work.

    I would like an iPod Touch, I have an original iPhone, but 32GB is just too small, and expensive as hell here in NZ, I think a 128GB iPod Touch would be the tipping point, 64GB would be cool too, but over 100GB of flash would be awesome. I keep waiting for SSD’s etc to come through, its always five years away, like the flying car!

  • Doug C

    zune is a great device – and the zune pass is a great arguement for them. i would pay $15 / month to get the latest music and keep 10 forever – wouldn’t you? thats only $5 / month for the actual subscription.

    the amount of bias on this site is kind of upsetting – even though i like apple.

    (zune has gained almost 7% market share for PMP’s, the same percentage that apple has for computers)

    who knows? maybe zune is better?

  • alex

    APPLE BLOGGER: I had a music collection long before the iPod existed, dumbass. And who on earth owns an iPod classic these days?

    Oh I don’t me, my friends and many other people …… who aren’t poseurs.

    Lets face it the iPod touch wasn’t exactly an iPod classic replacement… lack of capacity comes to mind.

  • slappy

    After the economic meltdown that these “financial planners” have profited from, MS is stupid enough to use one as a spokesperson? ahahahaha

  • http://bits.samiq.net Samiq

    I guess u wont be the first one taking $19.99 a month once apple goes subscription available aren’t u and preaching the choir of all the rest apple fan boyz?

    I am Mac and I am a PC too… both on my MBP.

    I’ve own every single version of the ipods since the ipod photo, including the iphone, and nowadays a touch.

    Today I also own a zune, and to be honest, the only reason I use the touch is for web browsing and the apps, not for the music.

    For music I use my zune, zune desktop is 10 times better than itunes, discovery way better than genious and the experiences is just focused on music… that’s what I love. One more thing… with my zune I can carry almost all of my music around… without thinking… what should I sync today… what would my mood by like.

    ipod is for music… or was.

    i wonder how much money do u spend in music nowadays…

    oh btw did u know u can keep 10 of those songs a month of the $14.99 subscription?

    that means I am only paying $5 for the subscription part.

    that means 5 bucks a month (almost waht it cost a coffee at starbucks) in order to access all the music on the zune marketplace…

    now who’s the dumb ass?!

  • Roger

    You only listen to music produced before you owned an iPod, but buy new iPods when your existing one still holds the only music you will ever listen to until you die.

    And why, exactly, is it dumb to assume that people buy music they don’t already own? Who bought the 6 billion songs Apple alone has sold?

    Try some new music. New stuff comes out every day. Expand your mind. Or is that a dumb idea too?

    (I own hundreds of CDs. Haven’t bought a single one since starting my Zune subscription. Something dumb about paying for music when getting any and all music I want for the price of 15 songs (actually 5, since you get to keep 10 of them) a month.)

  • http://www.hellorobot.se/blog/ Tobbe

    Ah, so that’s where those $30,000 of mine went – filling my iPod. I just thought of how Microsoft had managed to generate a lot of good buzz lately (releasing Windows 7 RC 1 free-as-in-beer and so on), but then they go and do something like this. I’d like to find out how many extra Zunes this ad will help them sell – none would be my first guess.

  • Constable Odo

    I’ve filled my 30GB iPod with older converted vinyl records, CDs from various sources (friends, library, etc.) and premium newsservers mp3 groups. I could easily get 20GB of music a month and it would cost me very little money, but I’m not greedy and I know for a fact I can’t listen to that much music because I don’t have enough time in a day. I’ve never purchased one song from iTunes and probably never will. I’m certainly never going to buy a Zune for any reason.

  • Thomas

    Not to mention that if you ever cancel that $15 subscription, all your Zune music disappears with it. So I imagine all 10 Zune owners out there are also thieves and pirates like the rest of us, right? /s

  • http://bob.com BOB MISH

    $30, 000 if you have no friends… no cds …or a brain

  • Hypersky

    I own an iPod Classic, and the 2nd last model too, 160GB, because it’s the only model that allows me to carry my 145GB of music around…

  • Scott

    it doesn’t matter what size you use. what he doesn’t say is that what you buy on itunes is yours forever. what you download on a pass will lock when you stop the pass, other than the 10 songs a month. so if you want to keep all the songs you have, you have to buy them over months and years at basically 1.49 a track, 10 at a time with no rollover (so if you only get 8 one month you just lost 2) or go to the marketplace and pay the same 99 cents a track.

    so in the end, it costs the same or more to fill your zune with music that is yours for good.

  • firesign

    i still have my 60 gig ipod, and will probably upgrade to a 120 gig classic soon. sorry, but the nano and touch don’t have anywhere near enough space for me. either way, i’d still never ever buy a zune. i would go with creative or someone else if i wasn’t buying an ipod.

  • Church of Apple

    PandoraJam – $15 non-recurring, record all the music you ever wanted using awesome Pandora and have it imported it to iTunes.

    Why the christ would I want a Zune pass?

  • Ryan

    Between MacBreak Weekly, TWIT, DIGGnation, GDGT, not to mention all the Audiobooks, I have very few songs, and I can fill any iPod several times over.

  • ItsGene

    “the amount of bias on this site is kind of upsetting”
    Um… did you note the title of this blog? Of all the pro-Apple blogs out there, I’d say this one has the most license to be biased.

    So, the comparison Microsoft is making here is a Zune with lots of temporary music and only 10 per month permanent, vs. an iPod with 30,000 permanent songs? WTF?
    I also note that it would take you 250 years to fill your Zune using Microsoft’s subscription method.
    Of course, that assumes that the Zune won’t deactivate itself again in those intervening years.

  • imajoebob

    It’s ironic that Microsoft is trying to use Total Cost of Ownership as an argument. How many times have they attacked all the TCO studies about Windows. And unlike this, those weren’t specious.

    As for Zune music value, unless you pay $15 a month FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE, those Zune tracks cost you $1.59 apiece. So the same “$30,000″ of music on my iPod will cost you $45,000. Right now I have more than 20GB of podcast music that is free. Forever.

  • roadtrip

    WTF are you people even conversing about? Apple is Apple, and Microsoft is… well, Microsoft. Who gives a sh_t about Office 2010 or Zune… it’s all about Bill Gates. We bought our iPods, iMacs and MacBooks so that we wouldn’t have to deal with the B.S. of the PC world. Stick with Apple or shut the hell up….

  • Richard

    Zune is lame. For me, it’s overpriced because I wouldn’t use it.

    I spend about $40 a month on my iphone’s itunes account.

    About $5-$10 is on music.

    $25 on apps.

    $10 on movies (this is where the big space requirement is.)

    I generally prefer to buy a video than buy a song w/o video, so those take up a lot of space too.

  • http://www.otheroom.com Barry Wood

    Penny Arcade has a nice response.
    http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2009/5/15/

  • No name

    This is yet another reason that financial planners are not to be trusted.

  • shiggybop

    Beastie Boys Anthlogy

    iTunes: 42 songs for $19.99 downloaded in about 20 minutes
    Zune Pass: 42 songs collected over 5 months (10 songs per month) for $72.95

    Also, if you wanted to download 30,000 songs for 14.99 it would take you 21 days. Without sleep. 9 days later you lose 29,990 songs.

    Wes Moss is an idiot.

  • Jay

    Hey Kristen, if microsoft is talking to the mac and ipod fanboys, then perhaps they really are talking to the dumbest people in the world. =P And yes, microsoft looks at apples ipod for some of their ideas to compete with. So why wouldnt the Zune have games, videos, and movies. What media player doesnt play media retard.

  • Jay

    Oh yea, Zunes have radio, that’s one big thing that i like. Not internet radio. lol

  • Jay

    Hmm, zune is making a Zune HD. That would be a zune “High Definition” if you apple fanboys dont understand. Touch screen too. I think zunes are more for adults and teens. Ipods are for little kids who buy games like “jelly car” and download “yo mama jokes App” wtf?