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The Inquirer has a list of predictions for 2008. Number 7 is “The death of the ipod.” But they don’t really mean the iPod, specifically. They mean all standalone portable MP3/video players in general. They predict that how the features of a PDA were subsumed by cell phones, the features of MP3 players will meet the same fate.
So, what do you guys think? Who thinks they’ll still be using a standalone MP3 player a year from now? |
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It might kill off the flash based MP3 players. Flash memory is still too expensive and the phone manufacturers are going to screw it up one way or another. There’s going to be a market for hard disk based media players for the time being.
I like some of the other predictions though. It would be nice if IBM bought AMD.
Not dead, but on life support. My iPhone will replace a large portion of my iPod usage and that is only because I work in a harsh environment where I use i won’t use the iPhone. The purchase of another iPod is unlikely. The smart phone has already killed the PDA- go to any of the big box stores and ask for a PDA, sorry, don’t have them anymore-
I suspect that a year from now, the big dogs in the stand alone MP3 player world will have stopped chasing the mailman and the rest will go the way of the portable CD player.
The Inquirer can be a fun read for their predictable opinions – passed off as news – if your gonads require those opinions. This portion of their “list” is no exception. Tailoring a bit of biz news to suit their hangups.
ALL tech gadgets sale were flat for Giftmas. To some extent, I imagine this reflects the recession in the West that no one dares talk about. To some extent, it reflects market saturation. Not exactly an unusual phenomenon – if you’ve ever spent any time in retail commerce.
http://tinyurl.com/2vbqnw
Specific numbers from NPD generally show MP3 sales dropping off – for everyone but Apple. Which is what you should expect from a market leader. Even if it pisses you off, once again.
is the digital camera market dead because cell phones have a built in camera?
Heres the problem with that prediction…
I DONT WANT A CELLPHONE, and I know many that dont. i also know that MOST of the area Im in, has POOR reception, so that EVEn in emergency, they SUCK.
If she kills the iPod you won’t hear me complaining.
Ahh yes, The Inquirer. The legion of British illiterates that have proven to be right so many time. I think Intel should be bankrupt by now, no?
Anyway, when I can pin a quarter size MP3 player to my shirt pocket and listen to Dvorak blogs for 10 hours w/o charging, call me. In the mean time, I can do that now with a $79 iPod shuffle.
The theory that everything integrates into one device because it can, is bullshit.
Inexpensive MP3 players are going to be around for awhile. People don’t want to bring an expensive PDA to the gym where it’s going to get sweaty and dirty.
iPods are great for the NYC subways where there is no cell reception.
If you lose a $100 iPod after owning it a year, it’s no great loss. You go buy another one. Losing a $500 PDA would be pretty upsetting and you may not be able to afford replacing it.
When I predicted this very same trend a couple of years ago right here on this blog, nobody agreed with me.
I still say when cell phones are also MP3 players, most people won’t want to carry two gadgets. Not everyone. Not audiophiles. But must people.
Renanto’s point about the camera phone is a valid one — the camera phone is an excellent harbinger for the MP3 phone.
When I look around (especially outside North America) I see about ten cell phone cameras being used for every stand-alone one.
Maybe those people have a camera gathering dust in a drawer at home but I’m guessing they never owned a digital camera until the one bundled with their phone.
Serious photographers will never be satisfied with a camera phone but the masses will be.
The same for an MP3 phone.
But in a year? Not that soon. But it’s coming for sure.
I think #4 hit it right on the head. I think the smartphone killed the PDA because organizer features fit well with a cell phone. I mean, what better place for my contact list than my phone, right? That was the main thing I hated about carrying a traditional cell phone and my Palm PDA, looking something up on the Palm so I could call it on my phone.
Personally, I rarely use the MP3 capabilities in my Treo. Seems like, in the same vein of the camera example above, a stand-alone MP3 player/iPod would do the job better. When I go running, I want my small, lightweight nano or a shuffle, not this big brick of an iPhone on my arm. Not everyone is going to get an iPhone, I for one am not planning on it.
I should also say, the MP3 phone will probably kill off satellite radio, too.
Why buy a satellite radio when you can get streamed (or podcasted) media right to the gadget you already own and are carrying anyway?
Andy,
Don’t think iPhone, when you think of future MP3 phones.
The iPod killers will be no bigger than whatever phone you already own. The only difference will be that you’ll listen to the MP3s with ear buds rather than putting the phone up to your ear like when you place a call.
Not dead, for those that already own them. Just not as big a seller, in its current form, as it has been. But by then, non-phone MP3 players might have some new feature(s) that cell phones have caught up to yet. So the stand-alone player of 2009 might be a whole nuther animal.
I predict that those digital AM/FM radios, that also pick up Tv channels (2-13) will become obsolete in 2009. That’s because they will no longer receive Tv audio as analog. But the AM/FM bands will still work. They just won’t sell anymore! I’ll really miss the two lousy channels mine manages to pick up. So when do they plan to digitalize radio, so nothing we own right now, works anymore?
Let’s face it. The iPhone (and others) are just smaller version of the PVR and Tivo. You can’t use them (very much) without paying a subscription, to obtain content. The stand alone players don’t need any subscription, to obtain more content. Just load them up from your PC.
End of the day, I want my phone to be a phone. I want to be able to forget about charging it for a couple days and have battery life left. The iphone is great, but watch a couple videos on it and you cut the standby time by quite a bit.
Adding the PDA stuff to a cell phone isn’t that hard but I still don’t think anyone has done a great job of it. Even the small Blackberries still weight more than a normal cell and mine crashes a fair bit. There is nothing like having your phone locking up on you when you are trying to answer a call. I had a Treo for a week or so and it was even worst.
The comment (the first one not the second one) about camera phones is right on. I’ve only used the phone in my camera a couple times, also when I didn’t know I needed one. I couple a small, cheap digital camera with be and the picture out of that are still better then an camera phone I’ve seen.
I think the angle of this story is all wrong. I don’t think it’s the PDA, of the Ipod or the camera that is going to be dead. I think it’s the cell phone. My Blackberry works and looks more like a PDA than a cell phone. I just happen to be able to make calls on it. Of the time I use my Blackberry, it’s the email that I use the most, not the voice calls.
16,
PVR?? they DONT RECORD…they take pictures and video, but cant RECORD video from another source.
Flash will continue to drop in price as more and more laptops will be made with it.
http://www.campus111.com/dmpre2g7lq.htm
Drop in price?? Naw, they will get CLOSEr to there REAL price.
Just another meaningless prediction.
There’s more to the iPod than just access to music. There is ease of purchase and management with iTunes for example where 10% of US music is purchased (by dollar amount).
The real problem for cell phones taking over are the wacko telcos with medieval plans and purchase agreements. If Google (yes, I know John, the story has been done to death) with their cool SDK and spectrum buyout can change the game then Apple might need to start worrying.
#22 – gquaglia – Just another meaningless prediction.
Yep, another doomsday prophecy.
Since my cell phone can’t hold the nearly 30GB of music I have, it is useless on that front.
#25 – give it a few years
!! SAMSUNG !!
Hey, I’m ahead of the curve, for once! I’ve had no separate MP3 player for over a year now, using my HTC S620 phone. It’s a Windows Mobile 6 device, and it used to be tied to my Windows XP PC, Outlook and Windows Media Player, but no longer: WM5torage makes it a standard USB Storage device that Linux can use, and I sync contacts and appointments with Thunderbird/Lightning using something called FinchSync. A 2GB uSD card holds more music and podcasts than I get time to listen to. iWhatzat? iDunno. 8)
It may just be the end of the iPod, but not for the reasons everyone mentions. The RIAA is currently removing our abilities to make mp3’s. When that is finalized, it’s the end of the iPOD.
I’m way ahead of this curve. I never spent a wad of money to have noise inundate my ears while walking. I did do the Walkman thing while running, but the stupid headsets kept falling off. Cell phones, well I threw mine away long before they came out of the car trunk. Yup if Jobs wanted to sell horseshit as condiments for hamburgers, there would be buyers.
Yes, it is dead.
Apple will come out with some new media player that can send and receive text messagesby waving it around in the air, call it the iPlay or iLaLa or something ‘i’diotic, and all of the Apple fanboys will dump they 5 generations of iPods that they have been collecting and jump on the new bandwagon.
Of course, it will require a new OS update, it will have a new DRM model that will require you to re-download all of your previously downloaded music.
So yes, the iPod is dead.. if nothing else just to make the fanboys buy more stuff every year.
>> Eric said,
I think the cell makers are finally realizing that if they really want a game changer, it has to be as good as or better than the equivalent stand alone device.
I predict just the opposite.
“Serviceable” MP3 enabled phones will get a far wider penetration than stand-alone models will… especially globally.
Here is a free tip for anyone here who wants to be the next Dot Com Richie Rich: be ramped-up for streaming-to-phone media.
When audio/video can be delivered cheaply to our phones, it will do for streaming media, what Japanese transistor radios did for AM radio in the ’60s. It was a media revolution.
The rest of the world will discover what we desk-bound computer geeks already know — it is super cool to have THOUSANDS of stations from anywhere in the world.
Podcasting is half-way-there but media delivered directly to our phones is exponentially better. As a media guy, I’m jazzed about it.
The one possible spoiler that I acknowledge is the likely stupidity of the phone companies — if they try to price the new medium as a PREMIUM product only for the rich, it could kill the baby in it’s crib.
Wow, nobody even mentioned the cute chick with the ipod in the photo, you guys are nerds!
I may be wrong, but doesn’t the ipod she’s holding have some sort of vibrator attachment? I’ve heard they exist and buzz in tune with the music.