Speaking of Apple potentially blowing its wide-margin lead in the digital music field, the iTunes Music Store isn't the only thing under fire; let's not forget that everyone and his grandmother are trying to slap together the ultimate "iPod killer." Now, while it's true so far that no music service has come close to eclipsing the iTMS and every player hyped as an iPod killer has performed in the market more like an iPod killee, it's probably important to keep in mind that one big name still hasn't quite entered the fray. Sure, Microsoft has been pushing its Windows Media format to just about every non-Apple, non-Sony download service and every non-iPod player, but it hasn't actually launched its own service or hardware. Yet.

The day of reckoning is nigh, though, and the trash talk has started in earnest. Faithful viewer mrmgraphics forwarded us a Macworld UK article in which MSN corporate veep Yusuf Mehdi is quoted as claiming that once its music download service goes live later this year, the company will sell Microsoft-branded portable players that will-- ready for this?-- "look and feel as good as the iPod for as little as $50." Uhhhh... yeah. Well, maybe if it looks and feels as good without actually, you know, storing and playing music. In fact, now that we think about it, since the iPod is all about style, why hasn't Apple shipped the iPod Lite? Picture a $49 iPod sans battery, hard disk, and processor; looks and feels exactly as good as the original, and at just a fraction of the price!

Well, okay, technically Mehdi's quote might be taken slightly out of context; some of his expanded comments are available in a Microsoft blog at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, and while the "look and feel as good as the iPod" quote is repeated, he's actually talking about third-party, non-Microsoft players that support WMA and will therefore work with Microsoft's music store-- which is, in other words, exactly what we have today, only without Microsoft having added still another WMA-based download service to the mix. And sure, it's certainly possible to sell something that "looks and feels" as good as an iPod for fifty smackers, but not with anything even close to the iPod's level of functionality or ease of use. So, frankly, we're finding it a little tough to get worried.

In fact, if we have to work up a specific anxiety about Microsoft's upcoming foray into iTMS territory, it's that the company has pockets so deep it could hype the living bejeezus out of a few of those alleged "good as an iPod" players and gain a bunch of ground on the iPod through sheer brute-force advertising alone. But with the fourth-generation iPod supposedly just around the corner, there's every chance that Apple still has a killer new feature or six up its sleeve, and we tend to think that the iPod is so iconic in pop culture by now that it's just not going anywhere for a good while yet.

Then again, we were also shocked and appalled when Dude, Where's My Car? didn't get dual Best Actor nominations, so maybe you shouldn't listen to us. In fact, we're pretty sure of it.