“It isn’t the best music player, but it’s the cheapest!”
That’s the sentiment in Microsoft’s new Zune ad (as you might have noticed, that’s Wes Moss from season 2 of The Apprentice in the role of “Certified Financial Planner.” Who trusts a financial planner these days?), which claims that it costs $30,000 to fill a 120GB iPod classic* with music from the iTunes store. Let’s examine that claim.
The assumption is that all of the music on an iPod will come from iTunes. Most of my music came from CDs that I purchased years ago, which transferred for free. That’s sunk cost, yes, but those tracks consume storage space just as greedily as new iTunes tracks do. Also, they’re assuming that you buy all of your music one track at a time. An album is cheaper than the same 10 songs individually.
As an alternative, the ad promotes the Zune Marketplace. For $15/mo., you may download and keep as many songs as you want, as long as you maintain your subscription. Additionally, you may keep 10 songs a month for good. So, you’re purchasing 10 songs at $1 each, and paying $4.99 to rent unlimited songs. It sounds like a good deal but I don’t ever want to rent music.
The ad also assumes that there are no videos, TV shows, movies (rented or purchased) photos, free podcasts, audiobooks or data stored on the iPod. Those who buy the 120GB model are certainly using it in disk mode.
In the end, price is the deciding factor here so let’s talk price. I’ve recently canceled my Netflix, Sirius Radio and a few other subscriptions in an attempt to save money. If I don’t want to spend money in iTunes during a given month, I don’t. My music library is unaffected. If I cancel my ZunePass subscription, the vast majority of my collection goes with it. Finally, my friends have set goals for themselves other than “Fill my iPod to the brim with music from the iTunes Store.”
*Microsoft calls the 120GB iPod classic “…the lastest iPod.” Actually, that model was released on September 9, 2008. The latest iPod is the iPod shuffle, which was introduced on March 11, 2009. At 4GB, it would cost $1,000 to fill the shuffle with new iTunes tracks at “…a buck a song.”