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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.
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.