I generally agree but the iPod argument really downplays the effort apple puts into industrial design and UX. At the time of the 3rd gen iPod and being a high school studeny I could only afford one of the few of its competitors, the HDD-powered Creative Nomad, and its infuriatingly unintuitive and inconsistent UI. I'm not even talking some kind of "attractive" UI like the rather useless cover flow view introduced later. The Nomad was literally a pain to use where a little wheel had to be rotated to scroll between the many albums. in hindsight, the clickwheel UI would've been worth more than a few extra gigs of space.