Barticus, iPod is the growth engine, the bonus as you were, in the pot. Bringing better software to the Wintel iPod so it operates like a Mac iPod is expected to generate high interest, =ing high sales. I’m not, by any means putting down Apple’s products, but reality has many faces, and the market profile is not a pretty one.
As for judging someone’s personality by the written opinion of others, I do my best to refrain, especially if I don’t know the writer, and or he doesn’t have to answer for his words. It’s a whole lot easier to write about someone then it is to look them in the eye and say what you will, I often wish that was the test!
(Politicians being the exception, they get paid for being a target.)
Paddy, writers write to their readers, if your readers are wiggit warmers then you say nice things about warm wiggits. On the other hand, business is a reflection of strategy and chance, Apple has one down pat, and is working hard to get the other.
Compare it to the Auto industry, the roads are built and paved, asking people to drive over and meadow and through the woods to grandma’s house is a big job. But, if you package the suggestion with a Cadillac Escalade, the invitation becomes more appealing.
Cyberpet, apparently, and I’m not speaking from experience here, the software for the Wintel iPod is wanting. The next generation, as you called it, promises to be more like the Mac version, and that is what has stimulate interest in the market fom what I've read.