Chris Petrilli notes that Apple is winning the same battle in portable devices that Microsoft won in the 90's with desktops - they've created a full ecosystem:

That is the iPhone/iPod ecosystem. That leaves out the thousands and thousands of accessories that are “Made for iPhone”. It’s a gigantic impediment to adoption, and more importantly a huge risk to consider for any developer. You don’t unseat the “best” while being only incrementally better. You have to change the game.

You can see this in any electronics aisle in a store like Target: tons of "iPod compatible" devices, and absolutely nothing for anything else. MS won the desktop (just try to find much mac software in a Target) - but Apple is winning the small device battle.

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