In his WinInfo blog at WindowsITPro, Paul Thurmott seems to agree with FreeiPodGuy today that the chest-beating gorilla is full of soon-to-be-lobbed poo poo.

In his article (whose title actually includes the word "Pffftttt ..."), Thurmott says that we won't be seeing an iPod killer, for two reasons:

1. Truly competing music players will not appear.

2. In the unlikely event that something worth owning other than an iPod does actually materialize, all Apple has to do to recapture the rest of the player market is allow the iPod to play WMA-formatted music. If that happens, there will be no reason to own anything other than an iPod for music playing. "The iPod would then literally be perfect, and it would blow away any reason to consider any other kind of music player." I agree with that statement 95%. The other 5% comes when the iPod plays video.

Naturally, Windows could deny Apple a WMA license, but my bet is they won't. Microsoft has little to gain from promoting non-iPod WMA players, if the iPod plays WMA too. Pesumably, Microsoft gets a cut of each WMA-compatible player sold. Microsoft should be happy with WMA licensing revenues regardless of they come from Apple, Creative, or IttyBittyMP3Maker Number 72.

The one possible exception: Microsoft has already expressed their fear of the "halo effect". They might want to kill the iPod even if it means more WMA licensing revenue if it means that the Mac OS will gain a greater foothold than it already does.  

Apparently even 800-lb gorillas are good for a laugh once in a while.

In between steamy snorts and bouts of chest-beating, Microsoft's Digital Media Division chief Erik Huggers said yesterday that new music players on the market this fall will pose a challenge to iPod's vast and cosmic-proportioned lead in market share.

"Come this fall there is going to be a number of devices that get close to competing with Apple's iPod," Huggers told Bloomberg News. He also said that by the second quarter of next year there would be several players that compete directly with the iPod in terms of "industrial design, usability, functionality and features."

And then he threw his feces in the general direction of Apple general headquarters. It was just so precious. You should have been there.  

Here's a good one. Apparently we're all getting so used to the "OK, the iPod is on it's way out, and we really mean it this time" headlines that even iPod fans can't help but perpetuate them.

One of the latest pieces of non-news is that the video game Doom has been ported to the iPod. To do it, you have to install Linux on your iPod (I call it non-news, because only geeks could do it, and with the iPod's interface it would probably be impossible to play anyway).

The latest headline from Podcasting News: iPod Meets its Doom

Huk.  

OK, so Apple Insider is reporting that the next iPods will have (a) click-wheels made by Apple instead of an outsource company, which should make iPods cheaper in the long run, and (b) a door for replacing batteries.

OK, you got your update. Happy?  

Apple Canada announced today that iPod buyers who paid extra due to the fact that their government assumes all iPod owners are criminals will get their money back. As previously reported here, the Canadian Supreme Court refused to hear a case on the matter, letting a lower court's ruling stand, which determined that applying the "guilty until proven innocent tax" to mp3 players is not appropriate.

Now, if they would just come to their senses with regard to blank CD media also...

Tell you what Canadians, when the government tries stuff like that here in the good 'ole U. S. of A., we start dumping CDs into Boston Harbor.  

As if playing to the conductor's que, Peter Dobrin at the Philadelphia Inquirer has inadvertently refuted Ivan Hewitt's article (mentioned here yesterday) stating that iPods are no good for classical music by providing a brief guide to classical music at the iTunes Music Store.