Choson wrote:

Now is probably not a great time to buy the stock though, considering they've decided to enter two markets that already pretty much exist -- small desktop PCs (Shuttle)

and necklace MP3 players with 512MB+ capacity. So basically they're banking on the Apple brand and its strength in design, which isn't going to win that many new converts, I'm guessing.

On a related note, I picked up the iPod 3rd generation, based on a similar decision process to the one you described, after initially picking up an iRiver MP3 CD player -- the size and supposed quality of the Apple brand won me over (it's the only thing I own of theirs). I ended up having to RMA the first one because the touch-sensitive wheel and buttons worked about 25% of the time, leaving me with a really cool looking flashy box the other 75% of the time. The replacement still has issues with the back button not always working, and the battery meter is pleasingly idiosyncratic (sometimes right, sometimes completely wrong). So yeah, Apple: Design is Job #1.