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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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Granted, there have been some fantastic inventions in the history of man. Like the wheel, that's still going pretty strong and with a massive distribution even now. Will the iPod follow in its footsteps? Unlikely that it's not going to 'ever die'. So yes, it will. Might take five years, might take twenty; but yes it will die.
No one will ever create something people like better then the iPod, and no one will ever want a computer in their home.
"I use a Mac because I'm just better than you are."
Will the automobile ever die, will toasters ever die, will stupid pointless articles written just to make ad money ever die? Stupid, stupid article.
But only if we Nuke 'em from orbit. Its the only way to be sure.
liqbase
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.
The article is just some blogger listing a bunch of reasons why the iPod is better than the Zune. Maybe if it were someone who's an authority on the subject it might be worth reading but after wasting my time I got the distinct impression that it's probably just a mac fan. Now that doesn't make his argument incorrect but it's not really worth a discussion.
It's battery does... :(
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.
"Will this server ever die?"
Well, lets slashdot it and find out.
Yeup.
Test your net with Netalyzr
July, 1983 - The Sony Walkman has dominated the portable cassette player market so far. It began the ultimate revolution in how we listen to our music......
Back to the present, the Walkman ceased to dominate the industry 15 years ago or more. The iPod will someday share it's fate. TFA is a lame blog article written by some fanboy who thinks he is creative, insightful, and discerning.
You know Taco, if it is a slow news day, it's better to leave the front page alone than to post "stories" like this just for the sake of filling space.
Slashdot - the place where you can look like a genius by restating the obvious
There have been other companies we thought we never see a decline. For a recent example, look at the problems that Sony is facing with the PS3.
If Apple forsakes their loyal customers, and abuses said loyalty, they will lose their biggest cheerleaders.
The iPod is a revolutionary device, although maybe not techinically, it has entered the conciousness of the public and it will be extremely hard for anyone to even try and match it's market dominance. The one thing Microsoft could have done with the Zune was to make sharing music unrestricted, but once again red tape has stopped it and the DRM will limit the function that could have made the Zune the better choice (along with Apple cutting the price, a move Microsoft didn't expect). I think the only thing to match the iPod now will be a device that is a mix of genres, much like the phone that is rumoured to be in development from Apple, if they can successfully merge the best features of an iPod (plus storage) with the good functions of a phone and make it stylish (not a hard job for Apple right now) then they may just have a chance of beating one of the devices of the decade. For other companies, it will be very hard to beat the iPod in the long run, and the only front I think they will have is pricing - which will only hurt their bottom line, as people will pay a premium to have the iPod. Congratulations to Apple on their market domination with this one, it's well deserved.
Business Voyeur
Seeing as the article was still in my browser, and is now slashdotted I copied the text here.
The iPod has dominated the MP3 player (and portable video player) market so far. It began the ultimate revolution in how we listen to our music. Competitors have come and gone, while the iPod stood strong, but really, will the iPod ever die? Well there are a few points that say NO and some that say YES.
NO! It will not die! (at the bottom of the article we look at the possibility of it actually dying, but for now the NO points outweigh the YES)
1. Its just too cool
The iPod has become so much of a cool factor today that teens prefer it over any other MP3 player. They don't care much about functionality, but how cool it looks. That's where Apple's ingenious design wins them over, and as long as the whole social group has iPods, it's going to stay that way. People just don't consider the Rio players or Zune cool looking: as the Apple sleek white design is just so much simpler. And Apple is getting better every day, with the recent introduction of colors (which we all love) and at even tinier (way cooler) iPod shuffle. So the driving force behind the iPod's success is it is the coolest thing to have, to use, to show off, to carry around; and it will stay that way at the pace that Apple is making it cooler every season.
2. Its known
When we think of MP3 players we think Pod. That was not true a few years ago, MP3 player could mean Sony or Philips or any other brand, but today the word that first pops into our head is iPod. The iPod is now global, even here in India we see the white ear buds walking the streets. You can get an iPod probably anywhere in the world.
3. Price
Apple always has very competitive pricing for iPods, especially with the iPod shuffle. That's one of the main factors teens look at, and combine that with the fact it's just so cool, hey, how can we resist?
4. Competitors aren't getting it.
Competitors like Creative and recently Microsoft (although the Zune does have a lot of potential) don't know what the current generation is and what they want. We want simply stuff, which looks good and works. While competitors focus more on functionality which not many will use, Apple focuses on pushing the limits of creative design: which many people appreciate more. Would you rather have a tiny glossy iPod which plays MP3s only or a bigger bulkier competitor's product which plays all known formats? Exactly. Apple made sense of it all giving us only what we will need, and sometimes more.
5. Accessories in all directions
We all love to personalize our stuff. Apple lets you do that with the countless number of accessories. It's like pimping your car with rims: iSkins for iPods, headphones with glowing wires, lanyards, stick ons and what not. No company in the near future can create so much personalization to match up with what the iPod already has in its large accessory market.
6. We don't like to change.
Once an iPod user, probably always an iPod user. If the iPod was your first MP3 player, you will probably never change if it's worked well for you. When you plan to upgrade you will go for the newest iPod, not the Zune.
7. Getting better.
The iPod is getting better every season. With smaller sizes, bigger drives, better functions etc. So far no company has been able to match with the pace that Apple has set in introducing new iPods which keep us anticipated to what they will do next.
8. Personal Touch
Mentally we are fixed that Microsoft is a big company with no taste and no 'coolness'. We see Apple as a bunch of fun loving guys which brings them closer to you than Microsoft or Creative. Their fun Ads on TV or their quiet sense of humor sometimes allows us to connect with the brand easier.
9. Killing the PC
As Apple converts even more people to Macs (and businesses) and as Macs get cheaper and more compatible with Windows, the iPod parade follows. More Macs, more iP
iPod is a fad. All fads eventually die. Some have longer legs than others, but they all eventually fade into a sort of background commodity basis if they don't outright die. Usually, you can tell when a fad is about to die when you see the fad and products for it everywhere...
More accurately, the rate at which iPods are sold will level off. That doesn't mean iPod itself is a fad, just that consumers are approaching it with a "fad" mindset.
iPod itself may become the Sony walkman: ubiquitous, until CD comes around.
Fortunately, Apple offers a battery replacement service for out of warranty iPods.
Out of curiosity, which other brands offer a similar service? I have a feeling the brand I stick with will be the one to offer the best post-purchase support. For one thing, it shows confidence in their product.
The day you can walk into Walmart and buy a 4 - 8GB flash player for $39.99 is the day the iPod will die. The iPod will eventually meet the same fate as the Sony Walkman did in the 90s once cheap Japanese knock-offs can be manufactured for cheap enough.
The Osborne 1 computer died. The IBM Stretch 7030 computer died. The Sony Walkman died. The Studebaker died... and so did the Oldsmobile and the Plymouth. Eleven of the twelve corporations in the original Dow Jones Index died. Elvis Presley died. The Soviet Union died. The United Society of Believers (Shakers) died. The Roman Empire died. Kepler's supernova died.
The iPod will die. So will Windows. So will the Toyota Prius. So will Toyota. So will GE, the sole surviving original Dow Jones Index company. So will the United States of America. So will life on earth. So will the sun. Even Jack LaLanne will eventually die (oh, wait...)
And your point is?
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
Actually, all five of those points are wrong. The only one that's even debatable is the battery one - and I'm still using the battery that came with my iPod when I bought it in April 2003. But if by "MP3 only" you really mean "lots of formats, but no OGG" you'd be right.
:)
Interfaces are entirely subjective, though. If you like your iRiver, that's great.
No. It will never die. It will survive the heat-death of the universe, as all other protons dissolve in the uncountable trillions of years in the future. They will be all that is left in The End.
Next question?
Help! I'm a slashdot refugee.
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.
Really
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
That's very funny, because as someone who was actually alive over 20 years ago, I can tell you that people said the very same thing back then.
Notice the pattern:
In the 2000s, everything built in the 1980s lasted forever; things made in the 2000s break after a few years.
In the 1980s, everything built in the 1960s lasted forever; things made in the 1980s break after a few years.
In the 1960s, everything built in the 1940s lasted forever; things made in the 1960s break after a few years.
In the 1940s, everything built in the 1920s lasted forever; things made in the 1940s break after a few years.
In the 1920s, everything built in the 19th century lasted forever; things made in the 1920s break after a few years.
And yes, I've done research on this. My grandparents are over 90 and swear that everything made since the Great Depression is crap and never lasts. I've found early newspaper op-ed pieces from the 1910s that claim the very same thing, just pushing back the date a little.
(The secret, of course, is that the things made in year X that only last a few years are long since discarded, and we only remember the things that last any decent length of time)
Repeated post from a while back. I can't believe people still believe the "stuff made today is shit, while everything made in the past lasted forever" meme.
Endless arguments over trivial contradictions in books written by ignorant savages to explain thunder in the dark.
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.
There are a lot of legitimate criticisms of the iPod, but the DRM one I don't particularly understand. Okay, so the iPod supports DRM. It doesn't require it. There is nothing about owning an iPod which requires you to purchase music from the iTMS. You can own an iPod and just ignore the iTMS completely, and use it just like you would an iRiver or a Creative or whatever.
The whole "I hate the iPod because I don't want to pay $0.99 a song" is silly. Nothing about the iPod requires that you buy your music that way. In fact, I'd argue that if you want to get your music from a CD, the iPod is probably still the best player, because iTunes is the easiest ripping/syncing/library-management software around -- naturally that's debatable, of course.
Your points about the lack of a microphone and a line input are well taken, because they're actual capabilities of other devices which the iPod does not have. But the DRM thing is a rather silly point and it gets brought up a lot. If you're buying another player as a sort of "protest vote" against DRM, that's your choice, but it's not really a limitation of the device. Apple isn't Sony, and you can use an iPod just fine without ever paying a cent into the iTMS or buying a single DRMed song.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
This isn't a new observation, but it's the first time that I'm writing about it. Probably because I'm sensing the end of my time here at Slashdot. I have not journaled worth mentioning, and not commented worth mentioning - but I was an avid reader and meta-moderator (and yes, I read many of the articles I meta-modded and their responses, to make sure that I would get non obvious situations right).
The news business, even in it's blog form is a tough business indeed. When the mother of all blogs (i.e Slashdot itself) needs to go trolling for clicks with a front page link to a teenage fanboy's blog related to iPods, it's a sad day indeed.
This article is neither "news for nerds", nor "stuff that matters".
But it's a predictable click gatherer - and it's been promoted to the front page by the Cmdr himself, not a junior apprentice editor.
The Cmdr hasn't lost his marbles - quite the opposite, he has a business to run - and this business is desperately competing with the shrill upstarts with editorial models solely around popularity, rather than quality.
The unwashed masses supply more clicks than even moderately intelligent and critical thinkers.
Populism at work, because populism pays. So now we have editorial control trying to emulate populism. Not the first and not the last time that will happen.
I understand that, but I see a fatal disconnect with Slashdot doing it. Slashdot doesn't do populism best. Slashdot's strength is (was) in quality control (editorial control , followed by discussion with moderation and meta moderation).
However, when the first input (editorial control) to the process isn't even remotely attempting quality control, all other quality control processes are becoming rather irrelevant.
Or to put it more bluntly, if the whole story is a troll, the comments, moderations and meta-moderations can't untroll it.
So I think Slashdot is losing it's way in this battle and like all good things will slowly fade away.
Reminds me a bit of apple in the early to mid 90s. They tried to emulate the populists of their day in their industry, when that's not what they did best.
Why am I mentioning apple?
Because against all odds, apple found its way again and came back - and found that their original essence could get them back into their highly respected and quite nicely profitable niche and they even could become the number one popular choice in another field.
Here's to hoping that Slashdot can do the same, because I miss Slashdot without its original essence.
"What it *doesn't* let you play is older DRM-protected WMA files such as those downloaded from Yahoo Music Unlimited or Rhapsody."
Isn't this a huge mistake? Isn't the biggest drawback of DRM that you are locked into a specific implementation? That people are worried that the songs they've "purchased" will turn out to be useless next year? This seems to confirm people's worst fears that MS will obsolete their entire song collection just because it's more profitable to do so.
I can't imagine anyone dumb enough to buy another WMA/DRM file after this. Usually MS doesn't make these kind of ridiculous mistakes.
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
There are a lot of legitimate criticisms of the iPod, but the DRM one I don't particularly understand. Okay, so the iPod supports DRM. It doesn't require it.
DRM probably has driven some key aspects of the design of iPod. For example, the fact that the iPod doesn't present its contents as a file system, like many other MP3 players do, is probably due to DRM. The fact that it's hard to get music off the device is also driven by DRM concerns. Likewise, the fact that the iPod does not support syncing to multiple machines well is probably influenced by DRM. Lack of iTunes support for third party MP3 players, and lack of third party support for iPod is another consequence.
That may sound a bit harsh, but it's only hard if you're a moron. Seriously, if you know a small bit about the Terminal, you don't even need any kind of third-party app to copy MP3 files from an iPod. It's all there as plain old files, just inside invisible (to the Finder, that is) folders. It's not hard at all.
Yeah, it's not as easy as it should be, although it has got nothing to do with DRM - in fact, you can copy DRM'd files off an iPod through iTunes if the "other" computer is allowed to read these files - the copy prevention only applies to non-DRM'd files.
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"?