Filed under: Humor, iPod Family, Cult of Mac, Odds and ends
iPod USB Power Adapter Beats Zune on Amazon
By all accounts, the Zune has been and will be a big failure for Microsoft, and now there is hard retailer data to back that up.Tucked inside a MarketWatch article on APPL's all-time high and the prominence of the iPod is this absolutely delectable statistic:
"...Microsoft's new Zune media player, despite heavy marketing, came in only at No. 75 on Amazon's list of 100 best-selling electronics, trailing items such as Apple's $29.99 iPod USB power adapter, at No. 65."
Not much more commentary on this from me today, just something quick to make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside.
[via Jupiter Research]
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Dave Barnes said 4:14PM on 12-02-2006
I think the better comparison is the "MP3 Players" category.
See http://tinyurl.com/y4efac
The black Zune is in 18th place and is ahead of the white iPod (80GB).
What is really missing from all this data are the actual numbers. Is first place 2x better than 20th? Or 200x? One suspects that we do not have a linear curve here by any means.
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PXLated said 4:36PM on 12-02-2006
Finally ran into a live Zune today. Looks cheap, feels chep, buttons were sticky. Screen was fairly nice though.
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m said 4:17PM on 12-02-2006
IMO, not worthy of a story. For one. Its 30$, the Zune is 250$. Also, more people already have iPods so this isn't surprising.
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Tom said 4:42PM on 12-02-2006
So when it comes to the iPod, it's all about volume shipped now Dan? So in your world Windows is better than OS X?
;-)
MS bashing = cheap shots. I want to see Apple news on TUAW.
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josue salazar said 4:43PM on 12-02-2006
Seriously, enough with this shit. "m" said it right on comment #2.
Look at this post, two-three short paragraphs repeating the same stuff we read about on other sites, just to gain more page views, ads, whatever. And pretty much all of the "posts" on this blog fit here.
Sigh.
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Greg said 4:49PM on 12-02-2006
I'm skeptical whether Amazon is a good representation of the actual market sales, but that said, I wish Microsoft had come up with a more competitive product, or at least more enticing, just to keep Apple's competitive spirit up; Better competition, better products.
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matthew said 4:59PM on 12-02-2006
These posts are still making me sad :(. TUAZW might be a better name for this site, The Unofficial Apple and Zune-bashing Weblog ;)
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Gilliam said 3:21AM on 12-03-2006
If a Zune falls in the Amazon and nobody's around to hear it, does it make a sound?
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Bret Benziger said 6:22PM on 12-02-2006
Don't act like you all didn't enjoy hearing this earlier. Cause I know, you did.
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Robert said 6:10PM on 12-02-2006
Enough with the wannabe Zune crap stories. They are not worth the bandwidth.
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SjH said 5:55PM on 12-02-2006
This tells us nothing about Apple (or the company's products), and is a waste of your readers' time.
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Mitch said 6:10PM on 12-02-2006
I was in my local CompUSA (San Francisco Bay Area) and asked the guy behind the counter about how the Zune was selling.
He said they have sold 4 (in total - since the introduction). His estimate was that iPod sales were 25 times that.
The store did have the Zune (working) on display in 2 different parts of the store.
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jonas said 6:43PM on 12-02-2006
warm and fuzzy inside?
posts like this make me wanna sell my macbook.
plus, this is like saying "windows still sells more than os x".
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Mike said 6:49PM on 12-02-2006
I don't care a whit about the Zune. Well, maybe *one* whit: the poorer it does the less I have to worry about another DRM'd and proprietary format poisoning the market.
WMA is bad enough as it is. (why for the love of Mike, for example, does my new Olympus voice recorder output WMA files instead of mp3?!?)... But then, I'm someone who won't buy another iTMS track until hymn is updated... ;-)
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Des said 7:15PM on 12-02-2006
Is this the power adaptor that allows you to charge your ipod from the mains ? If so people are buying it solely because it shoul dhave come in the box but didn't...
FFS does the Apple greatness have to be predicated on the bashing of competitors ? I have a new 20" iMac and its suffering from a known airport connectiviy problem and a known iTunes stuttering problem. I thought each and every Apple product was blessed by angels before shipping ...
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George said 8:53PM on 12-02-2006
I played around with a Zune in a few places and its:
not cheap feeling-at least, no more so than the iPods I've seen
has the best looking screen on any such device
has an easy to use interface
and looks just as cool as any other mp3 player can
The Zune software is ok, not great. iTunes is better, but not by a whole lot. Both could use a great deal more work, especially in the interface arena. iTunes is looking old and tired while the Zune software is just plain tacky.
Also, if I'm not mistaken, Amazon has split up the sales of the Zune...so, doesn't that skew the numbers a bit? I've also read several other stories that have it's sales way better and, in fact, in the number two spot, among mp3 players.
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Mason said 9:10PM on 12-02-2006
I'm sorry, I need to get this out. I agree that Zune is, in its infancy, not touching the iPod. But, I am quickly tiring of coverage on the issue in mac or mac-friendly tech blogs, especially coverage that is incredibly biased and based on data that compares apples (no pun intended) to oranges (power supply for $30 vs a $250 mp3 player?). What needs to be said, namely that the Zune has good points and not-so-good points and that it will need some help before it actually kills the iPod in its current incarnation, HAS BEEN SAID. Can we lay it to rest now, TUAW? I think your readership is getting bored and feeling like you just have nothing left to say about actual Apple and Apple-related products...
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Edsel said 9:38PM on 12-02-2006
I've been an MS stock holder for well over twenty years and an AAPL stock holder for four. It's bits of info like this that helps me make investment decisions. Please keep posting this stuff.
BTW, I purchased a brown Zune when it first came out. The hardware is okay but the device's software and online experience sucked. Oh, and WiFi ate battery life at an alarming rate.
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Zachary Hinchliffe said 2:15AM on 12-03-2006
An iPod power cord adaptor thingy outselling a hyped MP3 player.
..that's hilarious.
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Adrian said 4:47AM on 12-03-2006
Yeah, too much Zune 'news', but seriously Apple can learn something from the Zune - there are elements to the GUI that work a lot better than the iPod - a portrait screen for lists and having the artwork take up larger space as a background, and the iPod feels too wide in my hand. How about an iPod unit the same size, slightly narrower with a widescreen and smaller nano wheel?
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