Man, they just don't make price wars the way they used to-- at least, not in Korea they don't. You probably recall that Apple is, strangely enough, getting stomped something fierce in the portable digital music player market in that particular country, with the iPod reportedly capturing less than 1 percent of total unit sales. Well, as we recently pointed out, Apple Korea got desperate enough to do something drastic, and so iPod prices in Korea were slashed mercilessly to such a degree that Apple Korea even begged the press to keep quiet about the whole thing, lest surrounding countries get all up in arms over Korea getting far cheaper iPods than the rest of them.

So just how well is that strategy working so far, we wonder? It's faithful viewer Tivor X-09137 to the rescue, with a status update from Chosun.com-- and its the infallible miracle of modern technology to the rescue, too, by providing a Babelfish auto-translation for the benefit of us non-Korean-speakers. And here's the skinny: "Apple computer Korea the hard disk (HDD) stealthily is confirmed that the original broad way it will reduce a price the complaint of the consumers and at only Ji several days which announces the decrease in cost of the elder brother MP3 player child Ford and it buys."

Rrrrrriiiight.

Moreover, "Home page of 11th Apple computer Korea (www.apple.co.kr) Apple su to toe U Ford, child Ford mini child and the child Ford gun toe back are rising with a heretofore price but and Samsung eastern nose X it will drive even from the Apple experience center shop which is they sell the product at original price."

Um...

Okay, well, there aren't enough drugs in the world to make that auto-translation intelligible, or even less funny. Luckily Tivor also passed along an actual English article from the JoongAng Daily which clarifies matters just a smidgen: reportedly "Apple Korea raised the prices of its iPod MP3 players yesterday, after having lowered them last week." Original Korean pricing has been restored, disappointing and alienating Korean customers who weren't fast enough to snag an iPod during what must have been the shortest price war in history. It seems that Apple Korea made the price cuts "without fully informing the head office," so Cupertino was just a trifle peeved, and made Apple Korea reverse the price cuts-- which, in turn, angered the locals, which is exactly the right way to increase a less-than-1 percent market share.

But hey, at least the war was over before anyone got hurt. (Heck, it was over before most people could even blink.) So let's all just move on, and see what other strategies Apple Korea comes up with to sell those suckers-- or, more accurately, to irritate potential customers until they all buy other players instead. 0 percent market share, here we come. Child Ford mini child and the child Ford gun toe back are rising!!