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Steve Jobs Dismisses Zune as Possible iPod Threat
Sunday, October 15th, 2006 at 3:00 PM - by Bryan Chaffin
Apple CEO Steve Jobs dismissed Microsoft's upcoming Zune digital media device as a threat to iPod in an interview with Newsweek published Sunday. Asked if he was worried about Zune, Mr. Jobs replied, "In a word, no." Mr. Jobs also discussed Apple's efforts to woo the record labels, and his strategy to keep iTunes pricing where it is.
Interviewer Steven Levy asked Mr. Jobs if Microsoft's claim that Zune was all about building communities worried him. After answering in the negative, Mr. Jobs dismissed Zune's ability to find other Zune users and share a song with them.
"It takes forever," said Mr. Jobs. "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."
In a somewhat uncharacteristic move, Mr. Jobs revealed to Mr. Levy some of Apple's behind the scenes efforts to bring the major record labels to iTunes when iPod was still a relatively minor hit with Mac users.
"We got to know these folks and we made a series of predictions that a lot of things they were trying would fail," said Mr. Jobs. "Then they went and tried them, and they all failed, for the reasons that we had predicted. We kept coming back to visit them every month or two, and they started to believe that we might actually have some insight into this, and our credibility grew with them to the point where they were willing to take a chance with us."
Mr. Jobs added that this was one situation where Apple's small share of the personal computing industry helped the company. He said that he was able to convince the labels that a failure with iTunes, which was first limited to the Mac market, would still allow them to try other strategies with the broader world of Windows.
In the same vein, Mr. Jobs repeated Apple's public position when it comes to keeping iTunes pricing at its current levels. The major labels have argued that new songs from "top" artists should be priced higher than older tracks, while Apple insisted that iTunes offer a US$.99 price point across the board. It's that price point, he argued, that keeps ordinary people from pirating music.
"If we go back now and we raise prices," said Mr. Jobs, "[...] we will be violating that implicit deal. Many [users] will say, 'I knew it all along that the music companies were gonna screw me, and now they're screwing me.' And they would never buy anything from iTunes again."
The three page interview covers many other topics, including Levi jeans, how to know when you're product is good, and the nature of "cool."
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