Mobile Phone - Convergence Point For iPod, Others?

Nagen writes "DrunkenBlog has an intriguing essay arguing that the mobile phone is the primary convergence point for digital devices and will soon cause iPod sales to evaporate. Perhaps more interesting is the idea that the iPod is an expendable pawn in a larger battle of who will control the gateway of all legal content to the user."

Comments

Impending Black Hole

[ackthpt]

As everything in the world becomes integrated into a cell phone, it'll approach a critical software mass and collapse in upon itself, forming a sort of firmware black hole.

Solution: Buy the next model.

two words: battery capacity

[Audent]

I always believed convergence would kick in around cellphones with MP3 players built in but having played with a mini iPod all week I've discovered that I can drain the juice out of that puppy faster than just about any other device I have. I play it on the bus, walking to the office, in the office, at lunch and on the way home again.. the cellphone battery wouldn't cope with that kind of demand so I'd end up carrying the power cord with me all the time.

Re:iPod haters

[ackthpt]

here's so many articles constantly appearing about how this will kill the ipod, this will be better than the ipod, this will put the ipod out of business... so many people targeting the little white bundle of joy, and so many people falling way, way, short. Kind of sad.

Battery manufacturers rejoice!

"I'm sorry I missed your call, I either have my phone off or the battery has run down from picturetaking, musiclistening, notetaking, gameplaing und blinkenledwatchen. Please leave a message..."

Worst thing that can and will happen in the future to ruin your life? You lose your phone and if you had a password it was 1-2-3.

Differences between US, EU, Asia

[Anonymous Coward]

In most of Europe and Asia, most mobile phone owners carry it with them 90%+ of the time, and the market penetration is very high (especially amongst younger people). Therefore it makes sense that it will be the primary convergence point. Also, in Europe (dunno about Asia) the receiver never pays, so people leave the phones on all the time. I understand the situation is a little different in the US (incompatible networks, non-contingent cover) and market penetration and usage is a bit lower. Heck, judging by the stories here it seems the iPod is more popular in the US than the mobile phone!

Re:Differences between US, EU, Asia

[Kphrak]

Heck, judging by the stories here it seems the iPod is more popular in the US than the mobile phone!

That's because you're on Slashdot, where people love Apple devices and often hate the yammering that comes with cell phones, not to mention their "yuppie" associations. If judging only by stories and comments here, an observer would be unable to understand why "American Idol" or "The Bachelor" is on prime time TV when everyone seems to love $CANCELLED_NERDY_SCI_FI_SHOW.

Mobile phone use is about the same in America as it is in Europe. The difference is mostly that people in Europe (I've heard) and in Asia (I've seen firsthand) often use their phones primarily for text messaging. Here in the US, most don't. I'm not sure why, my guess is that we're just too lazy to learn how to type on the telephone pad. :)

Mobile phone market penetration is high in the US, but the "gee-whiz" factor has definitely worn off among all but the hardcore. Most people are more interested what kind of a deal they can get on the minutes they use than whether their phone can play MP3s.

Re:iPod haters

[dmitrygr]

would you please refrain from giving away my root password?

Re:May I be the first to say: Duh!

[BobTheLawyer]

I wonder if they're planning to actually build a cellphone. The two things Apple is best at - design and user interface - are lacking in virtually all the cellphones currently on the market.

Convergence is overrated...

[Kjella]

...sure you can put all the features and electronics in one device, but certain things don't scale well.

1) Battery ...which translates to memory size, CPU speed, in general faster == more power.
2) Optics/Camera ...I have a camera on my phone (it had a lot of other things I wanted), and it SUCKS. In daylight you can get some half-assed thumbnails, but really...

Basicly, the electronics can scale down to nothing at all, it is simply that the rest can't. Though I suppose the future may be more "intelligent" power management. It is a dummy phone with low low consumption when you need it (not powering up the huge MP3 collection or decoder chip) and an entertainment center (for a short while) when you need it. It's all about what you can pack into a cell phone sized object. Maybe a "dock" extension to your phone to make it iPod-like?

Jack of all trades, master of none is not good. But I hope they can make a flexible "master of all, one at the time" pack.

Kjella

Re:Well, here we go again...

[irokitt]

I predict that the iPod will die, but will rise again after three days have passed.

Maybe RTFA

[theolein]

I am surprised that everybody and his mother read the words convergence and phone without reading to the end of the article. The guy is making less of a point that Apple wants to sell iTunes on phones than he is about Apple selling music and video over computers, phones and other nifty little gadgets such as Airport express. He is making the case for Apple controlling the DRM content through convergence of devices such as phones, Airport express and computers.

It's a fine but important difference.

Re:iPod haters

[Rew190]

Apparently, noone else gives a shit about the battery life as much as Slashdotters do. I've got one and have a bunch of friends who own them. Any battery issues seem to be transparent for all of us and indeed all other happy iPod owners I know because we rarely sit and listen to our iPods for FOUR HOURS STRAIGHT before recharging. (PS: Ya know you can recharge the iPod WHILE YOU SLEEP?)

I always laugh when this comes up... a longer battery would be nice, but some folks complain about it on here as if Apple should be ashamed that their middle-aged nerd travelling customers (the same ones who predicted the iPod would be a POS noone would buy) don't think the battery life is adequate.

The funny thing is they don't realize they're not the market, even given all of the obvious evidence. And this is what is funny and makes me roll my eyes at every "OMG BATTERY LIFE" post. Longer battery life would be nice, but it's not the ridiculous issue detractors make it out to be.

Yes, this is stupid

[lidocaineus]

Jesus dude, get a grip before you turn into a complete luddite. You have a valid point, namely, that cell phones have a lot of features that are half-assed. However, no one FORCES those on you. In fact, practically every major carrier out there has their no-frills phone that is more often than not free with a contract. It makes calls. It stores numbers. It can't sync with your PIM software via bluetooth and it can barely eek out a text message. Good for you.

But blaming cell phone usage into turning people into lazy slobs reeks of shortsightedness. Do you think when cars started becoming mainstream that people exploded into lazy blobs? Do you think people complained about the noise and the pollution? I'm sure it seemed like it at the time, especially when people took the car to go down to the store two blocks away.

And guess what? I've seen more abuses of iPod folks than cell phone folks lately, especially in urban Chicago where I live. People are constantly standing in front of el train exits and entrances, not letting people through because they are oblivious to the crush behind them. They do not answer when you call your friend from 50 feet away. I've seen so many instances of oblivious attitudes almost leading to car accidents while pedestrians with white headphones leasurely stroll into a DON'T WALK intersection. Does this prove that iPod users are lazy idiots? Of course not. It just means that people are dumb in general, and it's amplified when many people jump on a bandwagon (ie cell phones, and iPod usage).

And finally, while some of us don't want crappy gadgets to replace single-use, superior ones, you are NOT that majority. Plenty of people deal with crappy, inferior products when they are handy. In fact, your iPod is another example. How many people use Apple Lossless on their ipods? How many of the masses even KNOW what that is? Nope, mp3 at 128 with bad compression artificats is plenty good for them. I like convergence, except when it compromises too much... however we are clearly not the group with the most buying power.

Basically, what you are complaining about is human nature, that is magnified by certain gadgets. If it affects you to such a degree that you are overwhelmed emotionally and mentally regarding bad cell phone etiquette, I suggest you use some of that angry energy to affect some change, not bitch mindlessly to an audience that either agrees with you or doesn't care. In other words, get over yourself dude; since your iPod make you want to do something, well... do it.

Re:One thing I promise you...

[grrrl]

Not to burst your bubble but have you compared the square miles of The United States of America to that of the UK?

have you compared the US to australia? we have very good coverage in all major cities and extended cdma coverage in the bush - ok so it doesnt cover the whole continent but people dont live over the whole continent like they do in the us (in the us protion of nth america). with the # of people in the US it *does* seem backward that better services arent in place.

Pods are popular but guess what? Most people over 50 don't own them and would never purchase one-the same folks that comprise 2/3rds of the GDP and don't want to be on the Internet.

do you have any basis for this argument? I know a *lot* of over 50s who are on the internet, and quite a few who have ipods! my dad spends hours ripping his cds in itunes to build up his music library

but unless Telcos are challenged with losing customer bases at alarming rates to outside competitors they don't move to improve services for customers. It just doesn't make sense to them to give new services if customers aren't canceling accounts.

now this i agree with - here in little old oz we have the major player telstra, and their mobile (and home!) plans get worse and worse, but people keep coming back and signing up new plans to get the phones, while dropping the features (like offpeak rates, per second billing, free chat, reduced sms etc)
some of the other mobile providers have better services but crap coverage and delays between carriers (nothing like getting sms's 3 days late!) - so the migration is slow

coming back to the mobile phone feature issue though, i think people *will* buy mobile phones with more features, but only because they get them for free with a new plan when their "old" (usually i think phones with flash cards are the way to go, but they will never surpass the ipod because they will never do *everything* well - like pictures for example - who cares??? i have a few photos of friends so their faces come up when it rings but its so low quality its just a gimik. i will never want to look at photos on my phone, and the interface will never be as good as the ipod for music (the more i use my new nokia the more i wish i could get rid of half the menu options!)