Why iPod - The age old debate

I know there are probably many posts about this now but recently, a friends came upto me and saw me listening to my iPod. He asked "is that an iPod?" and I answered yes. He replied with "iPods are sh*t". It turned out he preferred the Microsoft Zune despite living in Australia. This got me thinking, what is the real reason people like iPods so much. Of course it is easy to use but there are tons of players from brands like Creative which are even easier to use. There are products which have better features and aren't as limited. So what makes an iPod so great?

iTunes is a slow program (for windows anyway) and it is the only program which you can use your iPod with (fully with all of the features - I know WinZip support some features). It doesn't let you copy music from one iPod to another. Everything which people expect to be able to do is made so difficult. Could it be Apples dominance of the market? Are people afraid to move away from iPod? Experts say that the reign of the iPod has to end some time. There are only so many upgrades you can give a device which is meant to be portable. So what do you think? Is the iPod doomed to fail or will it stay at the top of the food chain for years to come?

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