And just how dominant was the iTunes Store in 2008? In April the NPD Group’s MusicWatch survey pronounced iTunes the , beating out Wal-Mart for the first time. By mid-2008 iTunes had sold over five billion songs during its five-year lifespan.

iPods again

The iPod, once a miracle music machine, has become a bread-and-butter staple in Apple’s product line. So much so that you can nearly set your watch by autumnal events that announce new iPod models for the holidays. This year was no exception as Steve Jobs on September 9 to announce updated models of the , , and . While there he introduced , a version of Apple’s ubiquitous music player, most notable for its Genius playlist-creation feature.