Meanwhile, what of the competition? Apple is, of course, no longer the only computer manufacturer making (or at least rebranding) its own digital music player to sell alongside its PCs. The first me-too offender is probably Gateway, who introduced its oh-so-cleverly-named Gateway Digital Music Player in early August; that wasn't exactly an iPod ripoff, though, since it was a 128 MB flash-memory-based model selling for $130. ("One eightieth the storage of an iPod for a little under half the price!") And besides, Gateway is barely even a computer company anymore, anyway; it's clinging to life by selling TV sets, so we can't really begrudge them shipping a music player, too.

Dell, of course, is the most overt copycat. In September the company unveiled the Dell Digital Jukebox (yet another stunningly creative name-- Wintel manufacturers must have a direct line to the muse or something), which looked as close to an iPod as anything can get without actually possessing an ounce of style. And just to take its blatant plagiarism to new depths of shamelessness, Dell also announced the advent of the Dell Music Store, its own online music download service. Unbelievable. We were rendered speechless for seconds.

But the Wall Street Journal reports that, while Dell was unoriginal enough to copy Apple, Hewlett-Packard is now so completely devoid of ideas that it's actually copying Dell. Yes, while Dell swiped the idea of a white hard-disk-based pocket-sized player and a downloadable music service to accompany it, HP swiped the idea of swiping the idea: the company also plans "to introduce an Internet music store and portable music player next year." While we've always been a big fan of HP's printers (we recently picked up an honest-to-goshness laser printer, the HP LaserJet 1012, for about $126 with next-day delivery-- thanks for the (now-expired) tip, dealmac!), we are stricken to our very cores by the revelation that there's a Wintel company that's actually less original than Dell.

Actually, make that two companies; HP isn't the only one copying Dell copying Apple. Gateway's Digital Music Player was one thing, but a few weeks ago it introduced its own iPod clone, with no compunction whatsoever about drawing comparisons: it's "$100 less than Apple iPod," crows the company. And just like Dell's offering, Gateway's looks like an iPod gone evil-- its controls are cheap and lame-looking, and instead of being white with a silver back, it's silver with a black back. Oooooo. Oh, and did we mention that while Dell's thing is called the "Dell Digital Jukebox," Gateway's is called-- we swear we're not making this up-- the "Gateway Digital Music Jukebox"? (Just in case customers might not be aware that a jukebox plays music, we suppose.)

The sad thing, of course, is that there are actually going to be people out there buying these things, and maybe even downloading music for them from the rash of iTunes Music Store knockoffs currently popping up on the 'net like virtual Starbucks locations. Still, without clueless consumer victims in the world, who would the rest of us snigger at?