Obama Does Not Use a Zune

Philadelphia City Paper’s Neal Santos was exercising at the gym on Tuesday morning when (to his delight) Barack Obama walked in and, wait for it, hopped onto the machine right next to his. His blog post details how Obama watched Obama on CNN and how he perspired while on the machine (shocker), however one detail that caught the attention of readers, was that Santos reported Obama was listening to his Zune.

For months we’ve known that the democratic presidential and vice presidential candidates use Macs and iPods. For months we’ve been hearing Apple fans parade around the fact that these two men use Macs and iPods but for one day this week, Probama Apple fans saw red. Seriously. The Guardian reports that one commenter on Engadget even demanded his vote back.

The Zune being a minor detail in Santos’ starstruck blog post, he likely didn’t expect it to turn into the storm in a teacup that it did. He posted an update clarifying that he was sure he saw Obama take out an MP3 player with his left hand and he was just sure it was a Zune, however, he wasn’t sure it the Zune belonged to Obama. He also covered all his bases by saying it might not have been a Zune at all.

“It had a dark case protecting it and from what I saw, he was using a Zune. I’ve seen a Zune in action. I know what it looks like. But no matter how sure I am, there will always be the possibility that he uses some other device.”

While it’s a little interesting we didn’t think it was news. That is until an Obama spokesperson felt the need to set the record straight, telling the world that Obama was an iPod user. Is it really so bad to be associated with a Zune? Geez. In other news, there is still a war on.

Jane McEntegart works in marketing communications at Intel and was previously Manager of Content Marketing at ASUS North America. Before that, she worked for more than seven years at Tom's Guide and Tom's Hardware, holding such roles as Contributing Editor and Senior News Editor and writing about everything from smartphones to tablets and games consoles.