iPod Competition? Yeah, right.

A recent Reuters story touts the new Sony flash memory Walkman as a competitor to the iPod Shuffle, to which I say "yawn". I mean please, Sony will not be a real competitor to Apple in the portable music market until they give up ATRAC and MiniDisc (the semi-modern-day Betamax) and lower their price points by 20%.

In my view, no one is even close to touching the dominance of the iPod. It's the perfect marriage of form and function. It's the ultimate gift. It's the must-have gadget of the disposable income set. And it's insidious. If the iPod is your first (or even your second) digital music player, you've likely converted all of your CDs into Apple's AAC format. What's more, you've probably purchased songs in that same format from iTunes. Would you suddenly switch to a non-AAC compatible player for a few more megabytes per $1? Not likely.

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