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In an interview with Newsweek ahead of the fifth anniversary of the launch of the first iPod on 23 October, the Apple CEO said that the iPod has 'helped to bring music back into people's lives in a really meaningful way' having faded in importance since the 1960s.

Jobs covered a number of topics in the interview, including how the iPod's 'holistic' simplicity, coupled with its iTunes software, is what made it stand out from the MP3 players that had come before and continue to separate it from the plethora of devices that have attempted to emulate it.

That includes Microsoft's imminent Zune media player.

Asked

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whether Zune worries him, Jobs replied:

'In a word, no. I've seen demonstrations on the Internet about how you can find another person using a Zune and give them a song they can play three times. It takes forever. 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.'

Jobs revealed that Apple had been talking to record labels for some 18 months before finally persuading them to begin selling music through the iTunes Music Store. For once, he said, the Mac's minority market share played into Apple's hands.

'Now, remember, it was initially just on the Mac, so one of the arguments that we used was, "If we're completely wrong and you completely screw up the entire music market for Mac owners, the sandbox is small enough that you really won't damage the overall music industry very much." That was one instance where Macintosh's market share helped us.'

Jobs also discusses interoperability and being 'cool' in the full interview at msnbc.msn.com/id/15262121/site/newsweek.