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Will the iPod Ever Die?
Azhar writes "Will we always prefer the iPod's glossy slim design over all the others? Or at one point of time will the iPod revolution actually fade? Lets have a look at what could happen and why."
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In Malaysia, the ipod isn't terribly popular. Sure some folks have them, but it's rare. A lot of people do own an mp3 player, but it's usually of varied brands. The reason is that ipods are just too expensive for the average youth to own, and there is no iTunes service to download music from over in this part of the world.
If I were average Joe who didn't want to take apart my iPod to replace the battery then yes. It's the only thing I hate about iPod. I am sure they designed it this way to. After all, by the time the battery dies, the mindless consumer will just want the latest iPod that is out.
Like someone said, all five points are wrong, and especially the battery one, somewhat.
The batteries themselves are great, I'm using an iPod 1G battery in my iRiver HP-120, but the iPod's OS and the continuous transcoding of MP3 -> AAC kills the batteries. My iRiver runs for nearly 30 hours on the 1G batteries.
Even though more advanced gadgets/control methods will come, people may still prefer the familiar click wheel interface of the Nano for basic music listening. Perhaps it will not be made by Apple, will have much higher quality/capacity or be a part of a multi-function gadget, but I think the design itself has made a lasting impact.
Uh, what? I'm going to assume that:
1) you deleted files from your iTunes library
2) you set your iPod to sync automatically
3) you connected your iPod, the sync occurred, and the change (deleted files) was reflected.
How is this not what you expected? You already *got* alerts that you were about to delete something.
You've hinted at the real reason that the iPod is maintaining it's dominance - it's the DRM rules that the labels are imposing on everyone. Because everyone has to lock down their devices and music, nobody can play with an open strategy - and thus nobody can make an offering that is much better than Apple. Unless and until the labels agree to a DRM-less music store, Apple will maintain it's crushing market share.
d _open_ma.html
DRM and Open Markets
http://digitalcrusader.ca/archives/2006/10/drm_an
augment your senses: http://sensebridge.net/
The iPod has only been around for five years! Even in technological time (accounting for Moore's Law, etc.) that's not an overly long time for a product to dominate a market. Market forces always swarm early in a new product's life cycle, especially for dominant products that do what the iPod did to the portable digital music player market. The dominance of the product will level off and it will either become a commodity (i.e., a useful or valuable thing, such as water or time) or be toppled by a better product, or replaced by a newer technology and outmoded. Only time will tell. Most of the points in the article about why the iPod *WON'T* die are a bit shallow. "It's cool" Yeah, so was the Sony Walkman....GONE! Basically, everything said about the iPod is almost EXACTLY what people said about the Sony Walkman in the 1980s; well, except for price. Those bitches were WAY more expensive per inflation adjusted dollar. They also raised almost the same copyright stinks as the iPod and music swapping are doing now. I remember the guy in the car stereo shop telling my Dad about not copying music to tape to play in the car because it was "illegal". This was late 1970s, early 1980s.
But there is some truth to it as well. I inherited my great grandparents' microwave (I know they used it daily). It was built in 1972, before I was born. It finally died three years ago. I have gone through 2 microwaves since then, and I did my researcy and intentionally avoided cheap easy-break microwaves. I remember when my parents bought their first microwave in the mid 80's. It lasted a good 15 years. Since it died they have had several replacements. My grandmother is using the same microwave that she bought 20 years ago. I highly doubt any consumer microwave built today will last 20 years.
I'm out of my mind right now, but feel free to leave a message.....
My Walkman broke earlier this year. Will I get an iPod? No. I use Yahoo Music Unlimited on my laptop now. Listening to local FM on the walk to work was my only reason to have a mobile player of any kind. If I get another mobile player, it'll have to support Yahoo's DRM and it'll have to have recording off FM. I've been looking at some of the Sandisk players. As far as I'm concerned, the iPod never lived. It just doesn't interest me. I like the PC platform and things associated with it, simply because its vast popularity brings in so many network effects (plethora of add-on cards, many different applications and OS choices, etc.). The iPod is a specialized device tied in to the Apple chic. I don't care about Apple chic. In fact, I'm decidedly against it simply because of that. Also, street criminals love them--nice and white in the night, easy to know what you're ripping off as you slug somebody and run away. I'm not saying that I'd let that dictate my choice, but it's something to consider when you're walking around a city with any ammount of crime.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?