http://macdailynews.com/index.php/weblog/comments/16879/

Ken

ex ped: Apple's press release was issued seven hours after my post. It's been updated to reflect the news.

Phil, I questioned your headline of "Apple's iTunes is 'briefly' no. 1 in music" because you are implying that iTunes made a surprising and likely only temporary jump to the top spot, whereas you and I and everyone know that iTunes will be the dominant provider in years to come. I don't know anyone over the age of 30 that buys CDs anymore and even older generations like my parents have move away from discs. Wal-Mart has already failed in the online music distribution business, as has Amazon and Best Buy will not even enter the business because they know it is fruitless.

The apple announcement of passing BB to become #2 was based on sales throughout all of 2007, but none from 2008.

Gift cards would be counted as revenue when they were sold (i.e. December most likely) and not when they are cashed in.

These are the first numbers I've seen regarding 2008 sales (I assume it takes NPD a while to compile their stats). If you've seen other numbers please let us know, but the ones reported in February were for 2007 so they don't factor in.

I expect to see something from NPD about 1Q2008 in May.

For some reason, Phil is writing more and more articles that are unbiased, solid and simply correct.

Apple is 'doomed' to become number 1 reseller of music, it's just an extrapolation of a solid progression, there's nothing to it. Why would people want to carry around a couple of silvery discs when they can carry around 1000s of weightless and spaceless files in an tiny piece of equipment with hi-fi sound? That does video too.

Phil, keep taking your medicine and behaving well, your articles have improved a lot lately

Sure walking down the street or on a plane with the little earbuds in your ear it is a marvel of technology with acceptable sound quality, and there is no better way to carry around thousands of your favorite tunes wherever you go.

But I've plugged an iPod into my $8,000 audio system with the settings and downloads at the highest quality and it is sounds OK, but certainly on a quality scale of 1-10, it earns only a 7, and I am being generous. The sound is not even close to what the original CD on a good CD player sounds like. I laugh when I see the $50+ "Audiophile" cables you can buy for an iPod. Audiophile and iPod in the same sentence is about as good an oxymoron as there is.

I will continue to buy 80% of my music on CD and then I will upload those tunes I want onto the iPod. This way I have the best of both worlds.

Don't get my wrong, the iPod is a great little device that delivers something that could be done in places and in ways that nothing else can do. But an iPod is not really about making great music.

This article points out that music is now all about convenience. For the too many that agree, I can only assume that you now avoid going to museums to look at the great works of art, and instead look at them on your computer monitor. It's the same thing right?

Wal-Mart has been the #1 music retailer for years. Let's just say 3 years (156 weeks) for fun. For a MAXIMUM of seven weeks (8 Jan through 28 Feb) iTunes was the #1 retailer. Then Wal-Mart returned to the lead it had had over the past three years (a time during which it wasn't even always #2). So, out of 156 weeks total Wal-Mart was #1 for 149 weeks and Apple was #1 for (no greater than) 7 weeks. Seems brief to me.

In case you still don't get it…if music retailing was NASCAR Wal-Mart led for 149 laps (including the last one) and Apple led for 7 laps and wasn't #1 at the end of the race. I can't think of a way to simplify the concept more than that. And boy do I dislike NASCAR.