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I don't care if Apple got the better of a settlement that resulted in apple having 150 million worth of it's preferred stock purchased. It doesn't really change the point. Further I'm not sure how you could claim the newton was a success. It was soundly crushed in the market place by Palm.

Uh, not exactly... The FIRST Palm was released in March of '96 and the Newton was effectively killed off by Steve Jobs a little over a year later, before the Palm became the phenomenal success it later became.

Please name those features you claim a product from 1999, MusicMatch, is missing today from iTunes.

I've been in IT far longer than you. the Apple computer market share growth is outpacing the Windows market share growth (loss) every quarter for the past seven years. . .

The Palm took off almost immedietly and rekindled the PDA market while the Newtons sales were stagnent. The palm was smaller, lighter, cheaper, and easier to use hence it selling very well in the same market where the Newton wasn't. That meets anyone but a fanboy's definition of crushed in the market place.

Please name those features you claim a product from 1999, MusicMatch, is missing today from iTunes.
How about a simple one. iTunes does not automatically sort by track number...which if you actually care about an album kind of matters. You can turn this on but it isn't automatic like it was in MusicMatch.

MusicMatch automatically leveled everything added to a library, it downloaded cover art, it automatically track numbered songs burned from cd and added it correctly to an album sub-directory within a artist directory, did not add DRM to burned music, and used a standard non-propritary MP3 format. MusicMatch in it's day was clearly the superior software, and it had the support of superior hardware. What it didn't have is a good business model, good marketing, and ultimately they squandered what they had. That can happen to any company even Apple.

I've been in IT far longer than you.

Good.

...the Apple computer market share growth is outpacing the Windows market share growth (loss) every quarter for the past seven years.

OS market share of the MAC (desktop) is 5%, lower for servers, higher for laptops. The only place where Apple is on top is the mobile market. Now while Microsoft is still top of the heap for desktops it's position is precarious and this can happen to any company. Then again companies that had fallen out of prime position can make a comeback. IBM is doing quite well as an example. Lot's of computer/technology companies in the past 35 years have had dramatic successes and failures. It doesn't pay to get emotionally involved in a technology that may not be around in a decade. While personally I think there are a lot of ultimately stupid gimmicks being slavishly reproduced by the tech markets I will happily make a living supporting said gimmicks if that is where the industry is heading.