Zune
- Cause of death
- Killed by a successor
- Made by
- Microsoft
The iPod had already won, and then the iPhone made winning the iPod contest irrelevant.
The Zune arrived five years after the iPod into a market that had finished deciding. The hardware was competent and the later Zune HD was genuinely well designed, but Microsoft was fighting for second place in a category the iPhone was about to dissolve entirely. Hardware was discontinued in 2011. Its software ideas survived into Windows Phone, which then died too.
Replaced by The iPhone.
Standing in the archive
Rank 103 of 127 by lifespan. Zune outlasted 19% of everything else on file.
Cite this entry
"Zune." How Long It Lasted, https://www.howlongitlasted.com/thing/zune.
Died nearby
- Internet Explorer26y 9m · killed by a successor
- Kinectabout 6 years · killed by indifference
- Mixerabout 3 years · killed by indifference
- Skypeabout 21 years · killed by a successor
- Adobe Flash Playerabout 24 years · killed by a successor
Sources
- Zune HD — Wikipedia (archived)
- Microsoft discontinues hard drives, "squircle" from Zune lineup — AppleInsider (archived)
Last checked by a human on 24 July 2026