Havoc has a big rant about why the iPod rules and all the other players don’t. This rant is probably correct for the US, but it fails for Europe. Because all his arguments are based on the fact that the iPod is the dominant music player. And in Europe, it isn’t. When I’m having my daily commute in the subway, you can see some people with iPods, but most of the people use so called mp3 sticks. And of course I have reasons for why I believe the iPod fails in Europe:

• Because these sticks are dirt cheap (you can get them for less than $50 and even when they were you they cost less than $100 pretty fast). They are in fact so cheap, it’s a convenience product. The iPod is expesive and definitely not convenience.
• Music players aren’t cool (at least not with people I talk to). Mobile phones are. And conceerning the youth ringtones are definitely cooler than a whole song. Ican only imagine what an Apple mobile phone would result in…
• Apple doesn’t really live up to the “all your music” claim. People here use Windows and Winamp or Windows Media Player. So using the iPod would either mean switching your music playback program or copying your songs manually in Windows Explorer. All your music?
• I don’t know a single person that had even considered buying anything at iTMS (or at any of the other music shops that do far more advertising around here, like Musicload). People I know trade CDs and burn them and that doesn’t work with iTMS purchased songs.

So I guess what it all comes down to is that I think that the iPod isn’t doing so well because it’s so well designed, but because Apple managed to make it synonym with “mp3 player” and especially “cool mp3 player”. But it only managed that in the US.