A leading US technology journalist has hailed Apple’s iPod/iTunes digital music combo as the best offering on the market.

Smartmoney.com columnist Walter Mossberg compared online music services offering subscription-based rental options for music with iTunes’ pay-as-you-go service and concluded that the rental model was “nowhere as popular as iTunes.”

“Right now, iTunes and the iPod are the better choice in digital music.

He offers a number of explanations to back up his claims: “The rental model is far more complicated and restrictive than iTunes and has several big downsides,” he writes.

One of the main difficulties with subscription services identified by Mr Mossberg is their incompatibility with the MP3 market leader – the iPod.

“So rental users are stuck with inferior portable players that don’t sell as well and thus don’t attract the huge number of accessories available for the iPod,” he said.

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