Despite not being cheap, Apple’s iPod is the best selling MP3 music player in the US, and the new 7,500 song capacity iPod is set to be even more popular. Coupled with the successful iTunes service there’s an increasingly high chance Apple will soon dominate the legit download business.
That said, it remains to be seen how well iTunes performs when it is made available for PC users – at the moment it’s a PC only service. And after a hugely successful launch the critics are starting to surface. Some say that, despite having deals with all the majors and most of the independents, some key artists (or big chunks of their catalogues) are missing because labels are asking for too much money and it would be impossible to make any profit on the 99p download fee.
Others question why Apple are so cagey about the exact stats concerning the service, especially when rumoured figures seem so impressive.
Whether Apple will maintain their dominance in an increasingly competitive sector remains to be seen.