Off the cuff Apple rant

It seems funny to me that Apple inc. is such a praised corporation.  Why do people clamor over an Ipod and shun a common Mp3 player?  Why do graphic designers demand an apple as industry standard?  Why is the Iphone considered so innovative when PDAs have been around for years?  To answer all these questions: its marketing.  Steve Jobs always gets it right and hits all the right notes.  Itunes was not the first online music store, but it was the first music store with the Apple brand.   It was the Apple name that won the trust of the RIAA to sell music online.  Ipod was not the first Mp3 player, but it was one of the first to feature a decent menu system.  Ipod shuffle is just pointless because an Mp3 player for a third the price has the same amount of memory and can shuffle just as well.  Macintosh computers cannot boast better PPC processors anymore, because they are now under the same x86 arcitecture as intel.  Iphone looks pretty but it really isnt all that innovative, just another touch screen PDA.  It would seem the only claim to fame of owning anything made by Apple is for the bragging rights of having something your friend cannot afford.  I will give the Apple design team credit for making all the products really shiny, because everyone is drawn to shiny things.