Digital Music: Apple versus Microsoft 107 story with `Apple' or `iPod' in the headline, it attracted viewers. It couldn't just be hard-core Apple diehards, since these numbers were bigger. Something was going on: the iPod was gaining cachet and that essential element ­ cool. In December 2003 the Observer newspaper in the UK commented that `The iPod may be just a hard-disk storage device, but it has become a cult consumer gift that has achieved a unique festive status over the past few days: it is the fastest-selling item being snapped up by internet shoppers.' 17 Some stores couldn't fulfil Christmas orders. The iPod had gone from `What?' to hot. On 2 January 2004, the Guardian newspaper's G2 feature section devoted its front page and main feature to an examination of the iPod's appeal, calling it `the coolest thing to come out of California since the Beach Boys'. The article quoted a woman called Hannah who went to a meal as one of six; three had iPods. `I was sitting opposite someone who had a [Sony] MiniDisc ­ I felt really sorry for them', she said. If anyone in the music industry had hoped that the MiniDisc, with its ferocious DRM system, would be its saviour, quotes like that should have disabused