Dead Device Walking!
So says Brion Feinberg, an analyst at The Diffusion Group, of that digital audio/video player you have in your pocket (OK, if you don’t have one, one of the three people near you does).
In a strongly worded report, Feinberg says that mobile phones will rapidly rise as an option for consumers desiring media-on-the-go, eventually supplanting the iPod and all hardware based music devices. That is, once problems with battery life, ease of use, and consumers magnetism-to-all-things-Apple are overcome.
The way Feinberg sees it, that ‘pod thing will eventually end up in your basement next to your Rubik’s cube, and lava lamp.
“Within the next few years, demand for stand-alone portable music players will peak and begin to slowly fade into the background; within ten years, these devices will be relegated to museum shelves next to the vinyl LP and the 8-track player.”
The signs are everywhere, if you know where to look, he asserts. The falling prices of flash memory will aid in stuffing more memory into mobile phones, which are already “great music players.” Outside the U.S., music phones from the likes of Nokia, Sony Ericsson and LG already dominate. And Rhapsody America, a
partnership of MTV, Real Networks and Verizon Wireless, has set the clock ticking for iTunes, the iPod symbiont.
Hey, even Apple knows it.
“Even Apple is aware of this inevitability, thus one reason for rolling out the iPhone. Yes, Apple will continue to introduce slight modifications and enhancements of the core iPod platform, but the iPhone represents the future of the iPod - just one feature on a mobile phone.”
This might seem a bit harsh so soon after Apple refreshed its iPod line, impressing even the most skeptical gadget watcher. Jupiter Research analyst David Card said: “if I were an iPod hardware competitor, I’d be crying in my beer.”
But the truth is, about a billion phones are sold each year, and more and more of them are letting you send email, take pictures, shop, find friends and restaurants, and watch television.
I never thought I could do all that on my mobile. So do you think you someday will put down you ‘pod and plug into your phone?
Trackback
15 comments so far
To a certain point he’s correct, but then he completely destroys his entire argument by saying “Apple is aware of this inevitability, thus one reason for rolling out the iPhone. Yes, Apple will continue to introduce slight modifications and enhancements of the core iPod platform…”
Well, DUH. Who ever heard of a technological area that DIDN’T evolve and progress?
So yes, one day the 16GB iPod Touch will be obsolete, as will the entire current lineup of the iPods. One day every single computer that is currently in existence will also be obsolete, but that doesn’t mean the computer industry is doomed.
I sense a flaw in his logic.
- Posted by DaveSeems like these soothsayers also predicted the death of the PC, that we’d have flying cars, etc. Why do most people (in NA and europe) still have home (landline) phones? I doubt Apple is worried. The only way a fully convergent device will succeed is if its intuitive and friendly to use and Apple appears well positioned in that respect. Meanwhile, iPods and similar devices will be making their respective companies plenty of money for a long time.
As for Rhapsody America, it’s the one on a death watch…..
- Posted by JImI dunno. Why would I strap a $400 combined phone/video/music player on my arm to mow the yard? If I mow my Shuffle, no great loss. Mow my combo device and I’d probably cry.
There is still a place for well designed single task devices. Always will be.
- Posted by DarylWhile eventually this will be true (though expect the phone also to be just one more feature of whatever it is a part of), there are a few years leeway as yet. Phones are not especially good music or video players (yet), until batteries improve, most people will not want to run their phone down playing music, Most phones are not even very good phones. Manufacturers have not yet solved feature creep and the inability of most people to use any of these.
And iTunes can serve the mobile market as well as anything. Again, until these guys figure out how to sell things that people can use, and thus buy, there is a market for iTunes.
But yes, the day will come.
- Posted by Michael FischerMy phone and my iPod have orthogonal functionality: I use my iPod for pleasure; my phone is like a “leash” whereby I am found by my wife and other people. I like the NON-phone enable iPod “touch”, myself.
But, the whole arguement’s moot, because it looks like Apple will have the cell phone market in its pocket in a few years.
- Posted by Tom BYour example may be flawed.
To the extent that we don’t like carrying things around with us, combining things seems to be a trend.
Of course, when they are combined like that there are problems. If you phone needs repairing, you have to do without your phone, camera, texting and e-mail device and your mp3 player.
When you lend your phone, you lend everything. So, there will probably be competing trends.
We’ll have to see how this pans out. It’s possible, that like the simm card, you will have camera cards and mp3 cards. Then, you can just transfer them to another phone.
- Posted by Steve Firestone“[M]obile phones will rapidly rise as an option for consumers desiring media-on-the-go, eventually supplanting the iPod and all hardware based music devices. That is, once problems with battery life, ease of use, and consumers magnetism-to-all-things-Apple are overcome.”
Apple has already delivered the device that does all that - without having to overcome “consumers [sic] magnetism to all-things-Apple.” Great prediction, Brion. Your future is already here.
I predict that in the future people will figure out that analysts at The Diffusion Group named Brion Feinberg have nothing worthwhile or interesting to say. Oh, no! My future is already here, too.
- Posted by LexMWell, whatever the future, Apple will likely dominate it.
- Posted by ThomasAs iPods and other devices become more portable computers it will be cell phones that become obsolete. A wireless voice technology is rather old fashioned at this point next to computer wireless technology such as WiFi where voice can be just a small part of what it can do. Of course that is quite limited now at least until the old analog TV signals become available at the end of January 2009.
- Posted by John WaltonWell I thinks it’s all been said. I can sum up everyones comments. Fienburg is an idiot.
- Posted by donThe only mobile phone that is a great music player is the iPhone. People don’t like other music-playing phones because they want to play their own music which they already have paid for. They don’t want to pay ridiculous prices for the right to play musics on one limited device.
- Posted by mcogilvieI agree with your article. The cell phones are increasingly displacing the iPods and other multimedia players.
Steve Jobs is also wrong in thinking everyone wants to watch video on little screens. We don’t. We want to listen to music and audio.
The iPhone as a phone is a bad product. Steve Jobs will not meet his arrogant prediction of selling 10 million iPhones during the first year.
Why do you think the iPhone prices were slashed so quickly? Why was the 4GB iPhone discontinued? iPhone sales have dropped considerably. Steve Jobs knows it and is in trouble.
The iPhone will follow the same shameful future of the Apple Newton; some good technology, poorly executed by an arrogant company with too much greed.
The iPod demise is not Steve Jobs direct fault as an increasing number of inexpensive and affordable cell phones begin to eat up iPod market share as multgimedia players. It’s Steve Jobs fault in that he has focused too much on video and failed to make a good iPhone that is actually smart and decent at making telephone calls.
- Posted by Alexiphone. its the new ipod.
really it is, or at least, in time it will be.
Apple has foreseen this as you say. Does that mean the iPod is dead?
far from it.
Music player phones currently on the market lack the functionality and ease of use of the ipod.
The iphone was released to combat these phones and challenge them.
The iPod itself will eventually just become part of the iphone software rather than a seperate unit, and its every bit as easy to use, and as innovative (ie- coverflow album art) as a dedicated ipod.
so why are Apple still releasing iPods?
because at the moment, the best ipod is an ipod, not an iphone…
The iphone has limited storage capacity due to cost. In time the cost of flash will dive and larger capacities (such as 80gb and 160gb now seen in current ipods) will be released.
The iPod is not dead, just, it will eventually live in the iPhone instead.
- Posted by LeviThe ipod will still be around for a long time because people are forgetting the media. Currently it’s mostly a music device, but in a few years, video and communications will dominant the ipod. Imagine 100’s of videos and movies in your ipod. As memory goes up, we will figure out more uses for that memory. Plus, as a device with wifi, the ipod will have allot more uses as well. And there could be a new killer app for the ipod in the future that we haven’t thought of. True, the phone will take more share, but there will a future for the ipod if it becomes a communicator and external extension of the computer. It will be around for many years to come.
- Posted by RJCan anybody say “Palm?”
The revolutionary device — out-doing even Apple, whose Newton was vastly inferior — was king for only a few more years than the iPod has been (and literally had no competition). But wireless convergence killed the classic PIM, and the company, while publicly acknowledging the threat at the time, was unable to neatly dominate the transition, Treo notwithstanding (can anybody say, “Blackberry?”)
Among the genius strains at Apple is their ability to turn disruptive change to its advantage, and to see opportunity in the flaws of existing products. When the iPod was introduced, the flaws in existing products were usability and seamless integration with the means of fulfillment (enter iTunes). The coming flaw presents a new opportunity to converge into a device that has already absorbed a host of single-purpose devices: PIM, camera, phone, Internet, email. The iPhone is the new standard, and guess who is best positioned to take advantage of iPod fatigue? And guess who is better positioned to continuing to make every last penny from stand-alone sales as the market turns? Let’s just say I’m not shorting AAPL.
Meanwhile, Palm continues its sad sack afterlife by first pre-announcing the Foleo, a device which would have served no known niche, and then killing it before launch.
- Posted by John C Abell