"among other reasons of course"

There are other reasons, but you nailed it initially: simplicity has pushed iTunes' popularity forward, and, IMO, this is only the beginning. Movie rentals will explode, and will contribute heavily to iTunes' success in 2008.

Matt, that's a good way to put it. Simplicity. That's definitely what it is. And I agree with you, movie rentals will really help Apple, especially if they continue this trend of offering the pick-of-the-week for $0.99. That should get the ball rolling. It also makes the Apple TV a better device, giving consumers a better reason to buy one.

Simplicity? Ha! I'm still waiting for an iTunes Lite so I can just listen to music, internet radio and add songs to my iPod without the extra bloat and "buy this at the iTunes store" nagging. A music player does not need to take up almost 100 megs of RAM to run. I think iTunes peaked at about version 4.

@josh
Can't help you with the app size, but have you looked in iTunes preferences? You can make that extra stuff go away under the "general" tab. Dig in a bit further and you can disable all kinds of stuff.
Though I really recommend you keep "party shuffle", I love it for normal listening, because I can get a random mix but I can see what's coming up in the shuffle queue. Which is a very good thing when I'm at work. Some of those random 'funny' songs or "WTF is that" moments that I may or may not have downloaded over the years have a way of disappearing into the pile and reappearing in a random mix just as the boss walks into my office.

The stock keeps going down because Apple has become niche player with expensive (overpriced) hardware again. I would like to see more Mac mini updates or another headless Mac. That and a sub-$1000 notebook. OS X only gets you so far before price becomes a factor in the broad market. You can get a heck of a nice Dell for hundreds less than the MacBook which is Apple's number one selling computer.

"The stock keeps going down because Apple has become niche player with expensive (overpriced) hardware again. I would like to see more Mac mini updates or another headless Mac. That and a sub-$1000 notebook. OS X only gets you so far before price becomes a factor in the broad market. You can get a heck of a nice Dell for hundreds less than the MacBook which is Apple's number one selling computer."

Your "perception" and reality do not match. Apple has significantly increased Mac sales every single year since the release of OS X. They are selling more computers, by a wide margin, than ever before. Their market share is increasing and profits are rising when the majority of other players in the space are declining. You clearly don't understand Apple's business model, and probably never will. Apple has no interest whatsoever in becoming a Dell or HP. They have no interest whatsoever in competing in the commodity market.

Dude, blame the big music labels. The guy from Universal has publicly stated is disdain for Apple. He doesn't want them to be the big kid on the block because Steve doesn't kowtow to the music labels. His nose is free and clear of brown debris.

The said they want Amazon MP3 to take market share away from Apple so they've licensed Amazon to sell MP3s with no DRM. The same tracks that are on iTunes all wrapped up in DRM. They want you to make the choice to buy the non-DRM MP3 and take market share away from Apple.

And it works for me. I try and find the track as an iTunes Plus song first, then I go to AmazonMP3 and look for the track. If neither service has the track then I find it the old fashioned way. I will never buy a DRM'd track again even though I know that hurts Apple.

I find this very sad.. and not true. Johnathan Coulten has made a name and profits for himself completely drm-free, and actually creative commons licensed.

--Sam