Microsoft Re-Designs the iPod Packaging

Brant Walsh
6 HN recommenders · recommended in 6 months, 2011–2026
YouTube
1.3M views · 20 years ago · other · evergreen

A short parody video, reportedly made inside Microsoft in 2006, in which a design team is asked to redesign the iPod's minimal packaging and keeps adding logos, feature callouts and stickers. It lampoons committee-driven, feature-list-heavy product packaging.

HN people share it as a brutal and funny reminder that restraint and clarity beat feature lists, and of Microsoft's naming and packaging dysfunction.

“this video is a brutal but hilarious commentary on Microsoft's inherent dysfunction when it comes to product naming and packaging”
Design critique & analysisBrand strategy & advertising
#packagingdesign#minimalism#microsoft#ipod#parody#featurelists

25 comments from Hacker News

j
@jerf2026 · in “Anyone else get a vague GitHub shakedown notice?”
Oof, you're reminding me of Microsoft Redesigns the iPod Packaging video: ▶ this video For those lucky 10,000 just learning about that today, for extra frisson, enjoy the fact that that video came from Microsoft itself: link
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t
@thomasjudge2026 · in “How many products does Microsoft have named 'Copilot'?”
Related: (parody): if you haven't seen it, this is a critique - from microsofties I think - of MSFT product branding ▶ this video
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j
@jnaina2026 · in “Claude Code is suddenly everywhere inside Microsoft”
It's over 19 years old, but this video is a brutal but hilarious commentary on Microsoft's inherent dysfunction when it comes to product naming and packaging. Still on point decades later. ▶ this video
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g
@gumby2022 · in “iPhone 14 Pro comes with dual-frequency GPS”
Many tech products are still sold on feature lists. Few people care any more. This great (short and funny) internal video from Microsoft was supposed to be a wake up call, but nothing really changed: ▶ this video The fact that Apple doesn't really play that game seems to drive some people wild.
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a
@alisonkisk2021 · in “If Microsoft Designed macOS (Concept)”
It's just a few lines of text complain about Windows, and some windows UI screenshots copied onto a max desktop. Not worth 2 minutes of video. The original "Microsoft iPod" video from 2006 is much better ▶ this video
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u
@untog2013 · in “Microsoft hires designer behind "The Next Microsoft", Andrew Kim”
This is supposedly an MS-produced parody of it's marketing efforts. It's very old now (I think it uses a 1st gen iPod?) but is still worth a laugh: ▶ this video Thankfully MS have learnt a lot of lessons since.
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t
@thomassmith652026 · in ““Gravity is worth asking about””
This reminded me of a 20 year old 'viral' video "Microsoft Designs the iPod Package": ▶ this video
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a
@adolph2025 · in “Microsoft has a problem: lack of demand for its AI products”
At what point does Charlie Brown not kick at the ball Lucy offers? It's been 19 years since "Microsoft Re-Designs the iPod Packaging". [0] Is the disconnect displayed in this message thread that there's always 10,000 new people discovering a fact? [1] 0. ▶ this video 1. link
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r
@rufus_foreman2025 · in “Microsoft allows use of personal Microsoft 365 subscriptions at work”
>> What is it with Microsoft and confusing product naming schemes Old but still relevant, Microsoft redesigns the iPod packaging: ▶ this video
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S
@Svip2025 · in “Microsoft will kill Remote Desktop soon, insists you'll love replacement”
Even 20 years ago, Microsoft knew they had problem with its naming and marketing[0], but I guess it didn't matter. [0] ▶ this video
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r
@ryandrake2024 · in “No price Microsoft could pay Apple to use Bing: Google antitrust ruling excerpts”
Reminds me of the "Microsoft Re-Designs the iPod Packaging" video[1] from nearly 2 decades ago (wow, I feel old). It was funny because all of Microsoft's brand looked exactly like that back in those days, and you could really picture them screwing the product marketing up that badly. 1: ▶ this video
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c
@chefandy2024 · in “The Mythical Non-Roboticist: Wouldn't it be great if everyone could do robotics?”
If you ask any UI or UX designer about the interface of Teams, absolutely zero will say it's good. You're giving it the blessing of designers based on your assumption that designers approve of MS UI and UX practices. They don't. Sure, some flagship products are pretty decent, but they've famously sucked at UI (and all other sorts of) design since forever. Here's one (made by an MS designer as a joke) from 2006 talking about their entirely marketing-department-driven packaging design: ▶ this video We use SO MANY interfaces every day-- every screen on every app and every webpage you use... text messages, ATM, ordering terminals, shopping carts, ad infinitum-- and using those is almost universally intuitive enough to be invisible. Designers use things like implied lines, gestalt, type variance, value contrast, and things like that to make a sane data hierarchy and give users signals for what's happening in the program and what they need to do to influence that. Good practices say they should then test and refine their designs for various kinds of users to make the best interface possible. If the UI design is invisible and users can just solve their problem without having to think about it, that's good design. When design "sticks out," it's usually for the wrong reasons. While bad designers exist, 99% of all "bad design" decisions cited by developers when talking trash about modern UI design were probably not made by designers-- they were likely made by project managers or developers that insisted their way was better, or they didn't need to check with the designer to modify something because they can make it "looks designed." If the interface looks "cluttered", they might remove useful things probably just needs to be organized. That's bad design.
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