Jobs: Apple Not Worried About Zune

By Ed Oswald, BetaNews

October 16, 2006, 11:55 AM

In a question-and-answer session with Newsweek, Apple CEO Steve Jobs slammed Microsoft's Zune music player, saying he was not impressed with the Redmond company's entrant. Jobs said the music sharing abilities of the player were too complicated and slow.

"It takes forever," Jobs chided. "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 three-page online interview, Jobs also touched on other aspects of the iPod, whose fifth anniversary is October 23. He said early on, the project had a feeling that it was going to be a success as developers and everyone who saw the players wanted one themselves.

"We believe that customers are smart, and want objects which are well thought through," Jobs said of the iPod.

A common thread as of late with the introduction of the Zune has also been the discussion of how the iPod could lose its "cool factor" due to its overwhelming popularity. "It doesn't make any sense," Jobs shot back. "We don't strive to appear cool. We just try to make the best products we can. And if they are cool, well, that's great."

Finally, speaking of interoperability, Jobs dismissed notions that users did not know they were buying into a closed system when purchasing the iPod. The user has known that all along, he said.

"People know up front that when they buy music from the iTunes music store it plays on iPods, and so we're not trying to hide anything there," Jobs added.