Not everyone is so confident that Apple will continue to dominate the digital music space - though it has to be said it is iTunes' main rivals who are the most vocal in predicting a turn in the computer giant's fortunes.
Those who are pushing a subscription rather than pay-per-download model (most prominently Napster) are confident a new technology from Microsoft will help them fight back. One of the key problems of the Napster subscription model - where you have access to the platform's entire catalogue while online - is your monthly subscription fee does not enable you to listen to that music on your portable player.
However,
Microsoft are about to launch a new technology which downloads subscription-dependent tracks to portable players - ie consumers can download tracks from Napster's library to their MP3 player, but they will only play while the consumer's Napster subscription was live.
Of course only new digital music players will be able to cope with this new technology, and it will never work with an iPod, but those companies running subscription services are confident it will make a big difference. Napster boss Chris Gorog told reporters: "With our plan, customers can get 10,000 songs on their device for $180 a year" - a similar sized music library via iTunes, Gorog argues, would cost $9,900.
Yahoo's music boss Dave Goldberg - who is also overseeing a subscription based system - agrees: "Selling 99 cent singles isn't working as a business model for us or consumers."
It will be interesting to see to what extent this new technology aids the subscription model services - and in turn what affect that will have on the iTunes-style platforms. Advocates of the pay-per-download model continue to argue that music fans, who have always seen a CD, vinyl or cassette purchase as being for life (despite the obvious flaws in the technology) will still prefer to pay to 'own' digital music, rather than 'borrow' it.