Like you, we've seen a number of
spoofs of the "I'm a Mac, and I'm a PC" ads. But most of them just make fun of the whole concept, rather than take on Apple, or a particular Apple product, directly. Well, Microsoft's just produced yet another rather clever parody pitting a Zune-toting PC with an iPod-carrying Mac, and apparently screened the ad at a recent company meeting. The sticking point is how "difficult" it is to get music onto the iPod versus how "simple" it is on the Zune. Not that we think the iPod is a paragon of usability, but we can't not bring up the fact that we'd love to see Microsoft
live up to its claim and really make getting music as easy as pushing a single button. Anyway, you can catch the video on the next page.
posted Dec 13th 2006 10:55PM
The major features announced for Vista were announced well before Tiger was announced. Everyone knows that.
And as for your comments about Microsoft and marketing, yes - it is true that Windows is more popular because they chose that 'budget' path, but Apple could have gone there too. Instead Apple chose the 'elitist' path, and they are still trying to break down that wall.
BTW, Apple's hardware may be well designed, but a VAIO or ASUS would give me equal (if not more) satisfaction as a MacBook.
I can't believe i read this crap.
Hey that PC guy was about to "squirt" the Mac guy, that was so close man!
iPods not a paragon of usability? hmm... well they are, I have proof. my completely computer-illiterate (yet-hawt) girlfriend was able to use an iPod within 5 minutes and without any instructions. This was 4 years ago when the iPod was still a novelty. I just said to her, go ahead, make some music... and she did it!
3 plays or 3 days which ever come first. Haha, yeah, that's just grand!
what makes anyone believe this was made by MS?
As much as i believe MS to have their collective heads up their collective asses, this is just WAAY too low quality to be MS. ...i mean the MS iPod packaging thing didn't look like some 13 year-old YouTuber made it...
really, just the timing and delivery are insultingly bad... this must be totally amateur. (like all the other horrible parodies of Apple's current ads... come on folks, this one seems to easy! why can't anyone do a parody worth half a shit?)
That parody was AWFUL. For the record I use and own both PCs and Macs, and we are a 3-iPod family.
Regardless, you want proof that iPod is better? Just look at projected sales. "Microsoft has predicted it will sell 1 million Zune devices in its first six months. By contrast, Apple will likely sell about 25 million iPods over the same period, according to financial analysts."
With the market saturation Apple has with the iPod, nothing else stands a chance in the short-term. And for all you iPod haters who are determined to buy a Zune or some other player, just remember how much it will suck when that company goes under or stops supporting it because they just can't compete with the millions and millions of iPods and accessories already out there.
Oh yeah, and I don't want my music player to suffer from blue screen of death thank-you-very-much ;)
Microsoft is just as pathetic as Apple!
-Posted from an Apple iBook :-)
Usually I would be annoyed, but all i have to say is, easy as D R M! Duche bags. Even if there was a hack for the DRM, the avergae consumer wouldnt use it. DRM broke the zune.
Everyone thinks that DRM's are the problem with digital music, but they only matter to people that the web and comment on reports about DRM's. Geeks like you and me and everyone else on this string.
The average consumer could care less, as long as they can listen to thier music when the want to. They don't care.
That is why Apple has 70 million iPods and 1.5 billion song in iTunes.
All you folks talking about how Apple sucks. Well they are sucking thier way to they bank and every other Consumer Electronics manufaturer wants to go with them.
In the mean time, people with alot of time on tier hands, are discussion forums with all the certainty of how billion dollar corporations have no clue how to do what it is that makes them billion dollar corporations.
UNTZ UNTZ UNTZ UNTZ!
eine zwei drei!
There is much more they could poke fun at like the tiny screen. MSFT needs to put some of these on National TV.itunes gives you 128 kbps...Zune Marketplace 192 kbps in a format that has been proven to sound better(WMA). Isn`t it all about the music ? Apple pumps out their low
bitrate tunes to save money of course.
though i wouldn't doubt a 192k WMA may sound better than a 128k AAC... you specifically say that at the same bitrate WMA is better. have a link? everything i have read places same-bitrate WMA behind AAC in actual blind listening tests.
i saw a lot of *opinion* pieces on the matter making WMA "better". all including the same tired talking points ... but in the actual listening tests i saw no such result.
Dumb...
wowo lame-city.
MS just has a better sense of humor than Apple. While Apple tries to be the cool company anything that actually comes out of the company itself and not some advertising firm makes them look like they have sticks up the wazoos.
Everything I've ever seen from Apple is someone whining that someone is stealing some idea they didn't come up with in the first place.
now where did I put my Easy button, hmmm...
This portrays the iPod as being a) scratch prone b) complicated and c) just weird
a) is true for the most part, iPods love to get little scratches but on the other hand i had one fall off of my car going 50 (new version of leaving your cup of coffee on top of the car and forgetting to get it...) and proceeded to get run over with only one deep scratch and numerous minor ones the iPod (3G) is still very capable of working and the lists can still be seen easily.
B) complicated? who has every thought of iTunes as complicated, you upload a CD - and plug your iPod in, i suppose you can eliminate the button you press to upload... oh wait, nevermind, you can... and last time i checked zune's are having some major issues running .
c) i dont know about this one... m$...
overall im just sick of hearing people moan and complain about iPods being total pieces of junk, but rather, if they were crap, people wouldnt buy them, and using simple deductive reasoning we see that iPods are actually relatively good portable music plays ... "but but but but they dont have wifi, and WAN, and and and and bluetooth" - cry me a river, nothing is perfect.
I love seeing how apple is gaining more respect and getting peoples heads to turn away from windows and start bringing more people into a world without windows, just showing someone that windows isnt the only OS will help broaden the industry.
Dumb logic. Doesn't the Zune guy have to give a credit card number to buy songs as well? Or is Microsoft giving away their songs in order to get the business? Pretty hard up, if you ask me.
Oh, I forgot. You use your credit card to buy MS points. And then buy your 99 cent song using these Zune points. The Zune guy didn't counter the iPod guy with this improvement over direct dollar payment. He also didn't show off the MS points to U.S. dollar converter that's built-in to his Zune. What could be easier.
Microsoft copy the ad but it's a bad quality copy, even worse that the ones that the Chinese make to iPod. And they lie, because iTunes works seamlessly for me and Zune Software don't install. And the iPod is a universal thing when Zune is restricted to the US Market. Europe is a big market where most of teens like to share, and a Zune is a good device to make that, but we are only getting them in 2008!
So Microsoft, stop coping Apple in all the good things that they done.
PS: Apple iPod Software is not so much personalizable as the Zune, but is it more intuitive and functional.
Man this is bad. Especially that the PC guy wanted to "squirt" the Mac guy. And Microsoft does not equal easy.
hey just to let all of you know how it is, i have this awesome thing called a cd mp3 player, so anytime i don't like what is playing, i can just put in a new cd, AND it didn't cost me $250+ so I can spend that money on something that matters, like a life, and do you know the best part about my cd's? I can use them anywhere I want, because I don't have to bring my iHome or Zune whatever dock, ALL of my friends can easily share music with me, regardless of what platform they use, MS or Mac, and it is easier than an iPod or Zune will ever be, Everyone needs to operate on the K.I.S.S. principle- KEEP IT SIMPLE STUPID!
yea, dude. you can also carry that suitcase full of
cd's everywhere. or you can just keep listening to the same thing over and over.
Intrepid:
How many of those Longhorn features made it into the production version of Vista?
And if you'll remember, OSX (first gen, not Tiger) had been introduced before Longhorn, showing UI effects that Vista now touts.
And it came out sooner, and done well.
If the budget path wrought with bloatware and rushed products is right, I don't think Apple minded being wrong.
*ehm* You don't always have to give up credit card information on iTunes. If you are a Mac user, it's already registered to you Apple ID account.
Wont the RIAA be all over Micro$ofts for this "one touch sharing"? yea im pretty sure they will be!!!
It's not even funny. I mean, really, it's not even a GOOD spoof. I expect better, Microsoft.
if you can spell rock on tour then you must be too retarded to use itunes...
they are comparing two totally different things.
purchasing a song (as opposed to renting it)
and
sampling a song from someones zune.
first of all, you need to find someone with a zune, which is a journey in and of itself, then you have to makesure they have the song you want, which they got by Yes, giving microsoft all their credit card info just like itunes, then they have to squirt it to you, which takes forever, then, you listen to it three times and its over...
see, those are VALID complications unlike the stupid crap they came up with to make ipods and itunes sound bad.
all you have to do is look at their sales tho i guess...
if you think about it
its kind of the same for the actual mac commercials
they make no mention of the good points of pcs (such as the vast number of games and software written only for windows)
o ya and Raconteurs is not spelled "rock on tours"
:P
Bill,
Contact Edward de Bono ... Stat.
How ironic to compare ease of music transfer. iTunes vs Windows Media Player. And note that neither of them have USB Mass Storage. And the hassles with both of them with moving music too and from the device are directly due to their dependence on DRM.
Just Say No To DRM, m'kay
I bought a Zune, and own several iPods. How is MS going to say copying music to the Zune is easier? It's much harder, anyone who actually bought a Zune knows that. Not only that the software craps out all the time, can only be played in the huge Zune window, and copying the tracks down is a pain in the ass, no smart lists, no podcasts or "netcasts", no good video content. Sorry I thought the Zune might just be cool, but right now it's sitting on my desk un-used, it's too complicated, my iPod just plugs into my dell and works without any effort. The zune on the other hand is chore, and requires more pushes of buttons, lots of popup dialogs, and annoying warnings and messages that constantly make the zune "experience" aweful.
Smart Lists exist: Right click on playlists -> Create Auto Playlist.
Yeah, the Mac guy is cute.
"Woah, watch where you're squirting with that Zune thingy!"
I can't wait until some clever hacker out there writes a wifi virus that hops from Zune to Zune and bricks them all.
@JohnnyRocket, Well that just makes you an asshole. no one worth a shit intentionally wishes pain of misfortune on other humans.
crazy-lying-psychopathic-nutjobs ... not really. Just folk who get a great deal of satisfaction out of using hardware built to a very high standard implementing state of the art operating systems.
crazy? ... a little.
lying? ... what evidence?
psychopathic? ... er hardly.
nutjobs? ... see crazy.
If people started using more software like Anapod Explorer they'd find it a doddle to get music on/off an iPod - and also handily avoid that pesky DRM that iTunes loves so much. The existence of the software which meant I didn't have to use iTunes was the reason I finally purchased an iPod...
Well, I actually have a Zune and for all of you that read it was bad, sorry but it's not. Menu's are 50 times better the Zune software was setup with ease and is great. Easy to sync up your stuff, and you CAN buy songs or also do a monthly thing, the size of it isn't a problem at all either. The feel and look of it is nice. Did I mention the menus are amazingly better? Or that viewing video files is nice with the size and ratio of the screen? The only real complaint I have with the Zune are the headphones that I can think of. Also, yes, I've previously owned an ipod and the only thing I see going for it over the Zune is the size, but then again the Zune easily fits into your pocket so no big deal.
Curious how many people are actually going to by this Zune.
http://www.pollburner.com/takePoll.php?id=e2f4756bb5d0
Me... I'll stick with the ipod.
Yeah, easy as pushing a button. Provided there's another zune around. And they have the song. And they want to share it with you. Otherwise, it's the exact same thing as the iPod.
zune boards? OMG... there are microsoft fanboys out there?!? How do you sleep at night?
This is just dumb. First off, sharing music over the Zune may be that easy but the person you give it to can only play the song three times before they have to go buy the song off of Urge... no, that's not right, the Zune Music Store or what ever it is called. Oh, and let's not forget that the Zune encrypts songs which, by law, are not meant to be encrypted (yes, Podcasts included!). Come on Microsoft, give me something here that makes me actually want to buy it!
I made 5 iPod vs. Zune ads...
check them out, http://www.youtube.com/profile_videos?user=GurwinProductions
This video is just bizarre. They have confused the issue of sharing files with the simple act of getting music onto your player. The only problem is that when it comes to putting music on your player, the Zune works in exactly the same way as the iPod (or worse, actually, since the Zune software is apparently not the most reliable).
By the way, what's with the Mac guy saying that he has to download the song and THEN pay for it after giving them his credit card info. It sounds like the people who made this don't even have a grasp of how iTunes works.
Microsoft's TRY at levity must be a way to try and counter the embarrassment and angst caused by Jim Allchin's 2004 email where he tells Gates and Ballmer he would would buy a Mac if he didn't work at Microsoft (despite all the spin and damage control going on to "clarify" the email).
MS... still pitiful and pathetic.
I'm not sure if being excited about the brown Zune is really a powerful note to be ending this on ...