Well they weren't my friends as such just normal non-tech Japanese that I met in various hostels around March 2005. It seemed like it was just getting establish

Well they weren't my friends as such just normal non-tech Japanese that I met in various hostels around March 2005. It seemed like it was just getting established at that time, whilst a few had heard of them, the people I had met had never used one. I note that even in the U.K. 2003 very few of my non-tech friends were aware of the iPod still. The big things at the time in Japan in March 2005 seemed to be the PSP (just released), High Definition TVs (there was one in a shop but were impossible to find in the U.K. at the time) and 100Mbs broadband. Oh yeah and I saw 3D cinema in the World EXPO whilst I was there. Mostly these things are being touted still as new in 2010. I'd agree that the iPod won because they made a nice device, but I think that's because that is what the American/European markets demand. However there are lots of markets in the world where functionality and price are lot more important than usability, like the massive emerging ones in India and China.