For years Apple has been fighting for its place in the Personal Computer market, showing excellent and elegants easy to use computers and softwares that go beyond expectation with affordable solutions for everybody, but none of this has helped the mac gains more marketshare than the iTunes-iPod duo.

The iPod placed Apple in the hands of millions of people, but what made this a successful is not only the iPod, it is itunes, which provides the backend to the ipod, syncing your music library, your pictures, calendar, ipod games, movie sale and rental, podcasts and K-12 and universities material.

Itunes has become the most important piece of software for Apple, even bigger than Mac OS X right now, because it drives more people to the mac platform than any other application, it works so flawlessly and elegant, it is the center of Apple present and future, everything is done through iTunes.

It connects millions of ipod users everyday, charging, syncing, moving and playing billions of music tracks surpassing all other players together. Itunes provides podcasts, movies and videos, higher education material for everybody and a new meaning to Software Development.

Quicktime was considered Apple’s Trojan Horse, the one that will drive millions of PC users willing to change from their traditional and tortuous Windows life to the mac, but was itunes the Jewel from Apple that helped the ipod and now the iphone have a safe place at Windows’ harbor. Itunes has been more than a Trojan Horse, it is Apple demonstration to everybody that this time is for real and that Apple won’t take any hostages, this time the killing will be in Microsoft’s own turf.

And what makes the situation even worse for rivals is that there is not possible replacement for itunes in the industry, we have seen popular offers come and go, Winamp was the user’s choice for years, but it has been buried on time, Windows Media Player and Playforsure is a subject in any Computer Economy Class in any univesity and Real has been losing market and ideas, none of them has come with a better offer in features and usability and worse, none of them have been able to replicate the ipod-itunes experience.

Long live itunes Soundjam, long live itunes.