My sister tells me that in the United States, one would be hard pressed to find someone who does not own an iPod. Feeding this huge demand, Apple has once again come out with a new range of iPod Nanos a few days ago, this time it’s the Nano-chromatic that comes in nine vibrant colors, including red, in support of AIIDS research and education.

iPod Nano-Chromatic in 9 vibrant colors

It helps that iPods are really very affordable. This new range of iPod Nanos are sold at US$149 for 8GB and US$199 for 16GB. Although I love all the colors that they come in, I think that it would be more viable if there’s housing for Nanos where Nano owners could change as they like, much like Nokia mobile phones. You’d be surprise that Nokia users just love to change their housing!

What amazed me about this new range of iPod Nano-chromatic is its thinness. Apple should have named it iPod Nano-Air. If I do not already own an iPhone, which is an all-0in-one device, I would have bought this Nano-chromatic but first, I would have a hard time deciding which color to buy!

In response to the good reception of Apple’s “Mac vs. PC” advertisements, Microsoft has launched a US$30 million advertising blitz. See, that’s why their operating software is so expensive. We are paying for that. Remember how Microsoft tried to irritate or embarrass users of pirated Microsoft Windows? Well, if they don’t charge that bloody high price, no one would want to use pirated copies, right?

Apple is increasing their market share while Microsoft has retired their popular WinXP OS and pushing sales of Windows Vista, which is not received as well by consumers. I don’t know why because I personally prefer Vista. An original single-user license for Vista is sold here in Malaysia at about MYR500, which is approximately 1/5 of the price of a desktop computer. Isn’t it ridiculous?

Hopefully this OS war will force down the prices of Microsoft Vista. That will convert more illegal users of Microsoft products into legal users, not by threatening us with Blackout Wednesday or something similar.