You are right, it does give that impression. But none of the digital music players before the iPod did not manage to have the impact it had. The iPod evolved from a music player to a personal computing device used by millions of people. It also spawned the iPhone, which turned the mobile phone market upside down. People make lines to buy the iPhone because they want it. No one needs an iPhone. But they sure want it.

so clearly what you said and what OP said are different, OP claims ipod success is due to cd-players failures (batteries etc).

"Wanting" is valid for some portion of consumer products and Need or some others are valid for others. I never wanted an ipod, and it died. I never wanted an iphone, and it is already dying too (check AAPL analysis). So watch out, for "want" products, they die quicker. Ericcson, Nokia and RIMM have experienced this and its Apple's turn.

Apple has made hundreds of millions of dollars from a product people wanted, and it somehow does not reflect my point?

so clearly what you said and what OP said are different, OP claims ipod success is due to cd-players failures (batteries etc).

I am the OP. The iPod was a success because it was the digital music player people wanted. No more, no less. It evolved into a computing device that changed the way we communicate.

i owned, gave away around 5 mp3 players pre-ipod, non of the factors you count, counts really; some of them were shiny, most of them had PC-based software. Apple simply had the coolness factor, hype machine and believers, which means fat profits.

apple iPod was cool, it had great iTunes (for the time), biggest HDD and the ratings. Ratings changed the way I listen to the music (songs vs. albums)