<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by ScottC:
Missing features are fine, but not when you play tough and claim that "hell froze over". If you are going to take the world by surprise and claim you have the best media player out there ("Welcome, Windows users, to the world’s best digital music jukebox") then you'd better have more to offer than this.</font>
I agree with you here, most certainly. I don't think the exaggeration is a fitting way of marketing at all.
<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by ScottC:
I think the reason iTunes was so popular on the Mac was because they had never seen a decent media player before. PC users are spoilt with good stuff. I bet that is also the reason all the other "i" programs are so popular, they are just the best the Mac user has ever seen. iTunes for Windows seems to be a direct copy of iTunes for Mac and it lacks so many features.</font>
On this, I think you're off the mark. There were and remain alternate player apps for those who like them. iTunes is about 3 years old after all. What these apps direct from Apple have done is popularize certain things with more Mac users than would have happened otherwise. People who wouldn't have sought out a music playing/ripping/burning app now have one preinstalled on their Macs, and they try it out. iPhoto is arguably also not best of breed. iMovie as I understand it still kills anything else that doesn't cost a lot extra. (I don't use it myself so I can't really say.)
The reason these Apple freebies remain popular on the Mac apart from the fact they come with every Mac sold is because they do work well for what they are designed to do. They do simple things simply and with minimal time spent learning how to do them. They are apps for the general public, not the power user. I think they do pretty well at that, at least on the Mac platform. It would appear Apple's track record at releasing stable Windows software remains suspect for the moment.
And sometimes even savvy users don't need every single feature on every single app. I don't find I'm lacking anything in iTunes. But that is me. There are very few apps that can really be the end all be all for everyone.