Digital Music: Apple versus Microsoft 127 iPod in the ascendant By August 2005 the digital music story for Microsoft and its partners still wasn't improving. In the three months to June 2005, Apple had sold 6.1 million iPods, more than a sevenfold increase on the same period in 2004, generating $1.1 billion of revenue. Sales were growing by more than a million every quarter. The iTunes Store had passed 500 million songs sold, and was selling about 50 million per month. Adding in the money from the iTunes Store, and other products, computers were now less than half of Apple's revenues. The iPod was in the ascendant. Gartenberg noted that `The problem is that Microsoft continues to focus on a complex message of "functions" and Apple keeps it focused on music.' Microsoft's smartphones, which as he pointed out already existed, could play MP3s, use Napster, Real or Yahoo subscriptions, play videos and even stream live TV, as well as `RSS web readers, e-mail, the web, games, GPS [location] and mapping and a whole slew of other functions'. Enough? No: too much, and too confusing, he suggested: