No question that Apple has another winner. But not just because they've got an awesome Flash music player which undercuts the competition on price ($149 for the 1GB model)

What Apple is really selling is a USB thumb drive which happens to be a really awesome music player. And how much does a 1GB USB thumb drive cost these days?

About $149.

Update: "Shopper," in the comments, points out that I must have been looking at old prices, and that a 1GB thumb drive is more like $70 these days.

Still, my point stands. The premium you're paying to get a really awesome music player along with the 1GB thumb drive isn't that much.

And, yes, I would probably buy an iPod Shuffle instead of a plain-jane flash drive.