“Two Apple-watching US investment companies and Apple watchers have reported that, finally, Mac sales are starting to enjoy an iPod effect,” Simon Aughton writes for PC Pro. “Earlier this week Apple’s share price rose by more than 10 per cent after a Piper Jaffray survey found that six per cent of PC-owning iPod users have now switched with another seven per cent planning to do so.”

Aughton writes, “The iPod phenomenon – and its integration with the iTunes Music Store – dovetails with other notable Apple successes of recent months. The retail stores have, despite widespread cynicism outside the company, been a huge success and the new iMac is a machine in which only the most PC-hardened curmudgeon could fail to delight. Moreover Apple is competitive on price like never before whilst the Mac OS retains all the advantages it has long had over Windows. Then there’s iLfe, .Mac, iChat AV…”

Full article here.