The core of Napster, the actual music store, behaves much like iTunes: type in the name of the artist or song, then watch as a bunch of choices appear. Click a song (99 cents) or an album (normally $9.95), confirm, and the download begins. Napster puts the special Windows Media files in your My Music folder where you can play them anytime, although lots of protective restrictions apply when it comes to copying, converting or otherwise messing with them. Burning from within Napster is easy, however: just drag songs you want to send to CD to a window, and then click one button when you're ready. Napster will even let you queue up songs you don't yet own, and will ask you for permission to buy and download them as the CD preparation begins. In other words, a make-your-own-mix shop in your own home.

If you prefer hard-drive jukeboxes to CD Walkmen, you might be into the slim, 20GB YP-910. Devotees of newer iPods will bemoan the lack of features like on-the-go playlists and genre-based sorting, but the YP-910 really does offer the simplicity that helped crown iPod king. In addition to straightforward playback, you get some technologies Apple-lytes may be interested in, such as a built-in FM transmitter (for wireless connection to home and car stereos), and a line-input for direct recording (think vinyl, think cassette tapes). So far, my biggest complaint — for both the player and the service — is the filing of every "The" band name under "T." Haven't we reached a point in evolution where those three letters don't throw off an entire catalog of music?

When everyone is finished comparing Napster and Apple's store, there's still a whole lot of Napster left. The $9.95 monthly fee lets you stream and even download music from the store at no cost, provided you don't burn them or transfer them to the YP-910; to facilitate your enjoyment there are around 40 interactive "radio" channels, DJ'd by Team Napster. Best of all, if you don't like a song, you can skip or delete it from the playlist, and if you do like a playlist, you can save it for later.

In the end, it will boil down to what's for sale. Apple says they have 200,000 songs for sale; Napster says they have 500,000, but when I poked around, I couldn't for the life of me figure out where that 300,000-song advantage was. During my searches, I noticed that Napster had more They Might Be Giants albums, plus a few CDs by John Lennon and Yoko Ono and an album by Nelly Furtado that Apple didn't have. But it evens out: Apple had albums by The Eagles, Lucinda Williams and The White Stripes that don't appear on Napster.

So the jury is still out, but in the meantime, there's lots of fun to be had. Good, wholesome, legal fun. Hear that kids? I mean, you know, you kids with credit cards?