[Tripper]

I believe alot of its subconscious - If you hear 'ipod' more than any other mp3 player's name its natural that you're gonna think of that when you think of an mp3 player.

...I think the initial foothold of ipod was through the advertising campaign and the fact that 'mac was back,' with a vengeance....But in the long run, quality and support secured that initial foothold for ipod, allowing them to dominate.

When you spend that much money on something - you want it to work (with the amount of people that have an ipod compared to other players - whether or not the quality is actually there is irrelevant, we just assume it is because of how many people own one) an you want to be able to potentially add to it later on (with accesories etc), ipod is really the only player that had as much accesories, different colours and variables and also models....This is why in the long run people will continue to buy ipod over other players.