The number one selling mp3/aac music player suddenly doesn't matter when it comes to Apple's earnings? How do they figure that? Apple isn't giving them away that's for sure. The iPod mini has been an overwhelming success no matter what people said about the price. But suddenly that doesn't matter. These guys figure out numerous ways to try and make Apple look bad but this is the dumbest one of all!
Keep trying as they might it still won't stop Apple. What ever happened to there last dumb idea that retail stores wouldn't survive? Look who's closing up there stores and who is still expanding. If you do it right it will work and Apple is doing things right and it is working.

I've always wanted to know... why do so many people spell ridiculous rEdiculous? Makes me wanna barf every time I see it.

I'm amazed that their journalists did absolutely no research whatsoever. I guess they missed the part where iTunes Music Store is available to Windows users as well. That very simple, and very well publicized, fact trashes the whole article. This was a major failure of journalistic integrity.

"I've always wanted to know... why do so many people spell ridiculous rEdiculous? Makes me wanna barf every time I see it."

Even worse are the fools who type "loose" instead of "lose", as in "Microsoft is loosing market share" ARGH!

But hey, at least that moron who kept posting RIPE is GONE!

Maybe 10.4 will have a built in grammar checker to point out usage errors. :)

I had just read the article on CNN before I saw it posted on MacNN. The article does not say that the iTunes Music Store is irrelevant. it says that Apple's earnings report is irrelevant if you're looking at the broader tech picture. Which is true.

Do you Apple apologists not look at the numbers? They don't lie. Geez, some of you people act as if Apple is the largest computer company in the world, and one that can do no wrong.

The fact is Apple is not growing market share, and in every statistical analysis, their market share is actually decreasing. SUre, their non-margin music store is tops, and their low-margin iPod minis are selling, but the overall revenues and profits are not affected all that much by these successes.

A reporter simply points that out, and all of you jump down the author's throat. Ridiculous.

You have got to be joking. Do you know that Apple has the equivalent market share in the computer industry as BMW and Mercedes combined in the car industry. Just because all the other manufacturers run on the same "gas" (Windows) means very little.

You would have a difficult time finding somebody to bet that one of those companies won't sell/bankrupt far before Apple ever does.

It is getting Old and Boring hearing all you PC Journalists tout that Apple is better off being taken apart and sold or going to go bankrupt.

Since 1980 the stories are the same. Don't you feel it's time to pay the piper his due? Don't you get tired of being WRONG! I am a switcher, I know many switchers. Just because you PC Users buy and replace your PC's so often doesn't mean the Mac user base is not growing. Market share means very LITTLE as you have proven by being wrong so many times.

It would be a much better article to write about how unfair Apples evaluation is my market analyzers. Just a thought.

I think you're wrong, and Apple is a fine gauge of the tech sector. Tech is more than computers, and Apple is becoming one of the larger consumer electronics suppliers - and now they have a successful retail presence, as well. They're important specifically because they are managing to thrive in a time where others are struggling, and people need to make a note of that as a model. While everyone else was cutting corners, Apple was putting more R&D into the iPod and G5. And it's getting them nearly caught up with the rest of the industry.

Not to mention that they are driving TWICE the revenue of Gateway.

Like it or not, they're a major player in the industry and should be paid attention to, because they're an example of how it can work.

I, for one, miss the RIPE guy.

Windoze people always have to hide their fear and intimidation of the mac because it is something of a concept they just dont understand enough. So instead of doing a quantitative analysis on WHY they dont like macs, they go to this whole market share thing. If apple was really worried about Market share, they would have more of it. The only reason M$ OS has so much market share is because people are satisfied with mediocrity and failure, and choose not to care or educate themselves about the companies bad business practices. Use both Os's for a long enough time to get in depth and lean them really well, and like most people I have tested this through, they all agree that windows isnt really that great when you compare it to os x. you will start to see that on the mac you just get stuff done efficiently, while in windows you just click around until something happens.You will see also that in windows that you havent been necessarily doing things the wrong way, but the mac makes it look as though you have been. and when people are so used to something, they will bash anything that threatens to shift their way of thinking no matter how convoluted their thinking is. Most people dont even know a thing about macs yet they will bash it to appease thier intimidation of something new. so lets all talk about market share as if it matters at all. When it comes down to it, if you were to guage actual user satisfaction, windows' market share of that would be even more dismal than Apples' computer market share. guage that against people how seriously know their stuff about both, and it will shrink even more. People like what they like, but if windows is so great then why cant i find anyone sporting windows stickers like the many apple stickers i see? Tells a lot obout a company if the companies market share is up in the 80th percentile yet i see more apple stickers than winodws related ones.

6 or 7 years ago a lot of people would have said, that Amazon is irrelevant. Today nobody would dare stating such things.
The same will happen to the iTMS.

Apart from that is and was Apple one of the most relevant companies to the tech sector, though not in an economical respect.

"Witness the first mouse, first 3.5" floppy, first GUI..."

I love Apple and will always use heir products but lets keep history honest. Apple did not invent the first GUI.

True, however they were the first to bring this stuff to the masses, not just in some labs here or there. BTW, same holds true to USB, which was around for years for PCs but wasn't really on the radar until Apple said "We're putting this in the iMac, and we're tossing the old connectors". Most Wintel computers you buy today still have PS/2 keyboard/mice connectors, and ususally coming PS/2 mice/keyboards. PCs don't move forward, they follow. And it seems that Apple leads more than follow (CD-RW definitely an exception).