Better in Black

The iPod only got hotter in 2005. Apple Computer sold 14 million of its market-leading digital media players in the 2005 holiday sales quarter — up from 4.5 million in the 2004 holiday quarter, Apple CEO Steve Jobs said Tuesday at the Macworld trade show.

All told, Apple has sold 42 million iPods — 76% of them in 2005. Two iPod models introduced last fall, the Nano and the video iPod, helped keep sales hot. "I don't see the iPod phenomenon slowing down," says technology analyst Tim Bajarin at Creative Strategies. Competing media players on display at last week's Consumer Electronics Show weren't as simple to use or as "nicely integrated" with online music stores, he says.