Meh. You're talking about 10 years ago. I was part of a semiconductor team that bid on the processor for the iPod [to the then-blond-haired Tony Fadell). [We lost to PortalPlayer.] I had just been at a Creative Labs office in Scotts Valley and seen their pink Nomad Jukebox Extreme (16GB hard drive!) which was shaped exactly like a portable CD player and thought "what could Tony be pitching?". Tony was very cagey about the project but was unequivocal about the fact that it was revolutionary. He was right. Then Apple vertically integrated the music store (the pukeworthy iTunes) and he was doubly right.

>Apple is a desirable brand and people want to be associated with it.

That's irrelevant since, if we're talking about iPod and "is", we're talking about 5-10 years ago. Apple produced a great product, but their brand was not great at that time. It was certainly on the mend and they were a small player in a giant market, but it was a PC-ish market and they weren't all that.

>>They're going to get pushed out by more competitors in hardware

[The grandparent] Completely agree. My wife has a very nice Moto Xyboard and our kids call it an "iPad". It's much like "kleenex" or "xerox". My kids are not more likely to buy an iPad because they say "iPad". They're equally capable and, AFAICT, uncaring about whether they're using an iPad, Xyboard, Verizon Fascinate, Nexus 4, Galaxy Nexus or Ubuntu laptop. Further, a particular friend of mine who is a crazy Apple fanboi can't stop talking about how much he likes his Nexus 4. As the rhyme gets longer, it gets more familiar...