Steve Jobs, Apple, the iPod and the iTunes Music Store are definitely riding high. With over 3 million songs sold every day from the iTunes Music Store and over 32 million iPods sold in 2005, Apple finally achieved something it had never achieved before: mass-market desirability. Now the mass market is finally focused both on the sexy design of its products and on buying up as many of Jobs’ lovely inventions as fast as they possibly can. As Mike Mella’s iPodFather movie poster indicates, some feel he might have a bit too much power. And unfortunately, this honeymoon won’t last forever, dear Steve.

Competitors are knocking at Apple’s door and while it’s true that insanely great products usually triumph over poor ones, I’m worried about other products, that are just great (read Beta versus VHS etc etc), beating out the insanely great ones out in the end. When Two and a Half Men can get an Emmy-nomination, the world is still ripe for a repeat of Apple’s late-Eighties fall from grace (Could Steve Jobs become another John Scully after all?).

After all these years of using Apple’s products, it still puzzles me why they can’t seem to make any in-roads into the mega-business world or even the business world of entertainment. Sure, they sell rafts of computers to advertising agencies, graphics design houses, video editing shops and now into the scientific community, but why won’t they get serious about getting big…I mean really big?
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