“The iPod, produced by Apple and currently the leader with about 50 per cent of the market, offers clues to the [hard drive’s] future. For example, users who buy a memory card reader can store digital photos; and those who download special software can use it as an address book,” Rhymer Rigby writes for The Financial Times.
“Other manufacturers have gone further. Korean iRiver now offers an MP3 player with a colour screen: not only can you download photos, you can view them, too. Archos, the French manufacturer, offers various jukebox-cum-colour photo wallets. Both manufacturers, along with others, sell small, portable devices which play music and video,” Rigby writes.
“These advanced machines are harbingers of the future. With their large, full-colour screens and icon-based navigation system, what do they remind you of? Personal digital assistants, perhaps? People already use HD players to carry large files. Will it be long before they want to edit them too? Or consider it from the other side: with HDs becoming ever smaller and cheaper, why not put one in your PDA so that you can store music? So where does all this leave the market leader? When asked in April about extra iPod applications, Steve Jobs, Apple’s chief executive officer, said: ‘It’s the music, stupid.’ The company’s new G4 [sic – should be 4G, as in 4th Generation] iPod range has nothing in it to indicate that the company is deviating from this line,” Rigby writes.
“But the numerous websites where iPod devotees swap tips on how to squeeze ever more functionality out of their players suggests their appetites are not limited to music. The iPod’s elegance and usability defined this market, yet unless the company responds to demand for new functions, it may find itself overtaken. Apple’s track record for holding on to trailblazing leads is not a happy one,” Rigby writes.
Full article here.
I say, when apple uses organic displays (just available now), they will give the iPod a color screen. But people need to remember, as Steve Jobs has said – “it’s the music, stupid”. If you want a PDA type communication device, get an advanced mobile phone. PDAs are dead, and are being integrated into phones, not MP3 players.
During the Apple music keynote in May, Steve was asked if apple was going to release a remote for airport express. Steve just smiled slyly and went on to the next question. Apple is supposedly going to release some new ‘tablet-like’ device, which will include the new toshiba 60GB drive. In my opinion, this device serves as a remote control for the entire digital lifestyle – a way to coordinate the files that are on your computer into all of your digital devices (your stereo and tv, etc). So the files are stored on your computer, but you can preview and manage them on your new tablet/console.
This tablet is not meant to be a full computer (unlike the MS tablets and media PCs). Its just a fancy remote control that can preview movies and music, as well as control iTunes etc.
The iPod is about music and 100,000,000+ songs sold on TMS shows this fairly clearly. With the larger drives it’s a no brainer to add features like an address book and use as a HD, bit the old KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid) does come into play. All of the competition, who for years have had players that could do all sorts of tricks, haven’t come close to the iPods level of acceptance.
That doesn’t mean that there will not be “one more thing” one day (soon?). Apple now has a trademark on “Pod” which could fill that market between an iPod and a PDA. Figure hand held, full color screen (like a miniature tablet) and a stripped down version of OS X. Possible with 60 GB drives – only the chip is a question. (OS X? What better way to get PC users to take a good look at macs EVERY day!)
Don’t look for it to be priced at the iPod level, but look for it to be a hot seller.
Now start dreaming . . .
Analysts – once and for all:
Some people want small size and light weight, which is incompatible with a large screen. Some people want a large screen, which is incompatible with small size and light weight. The ratio of these groups is not 100% of the market for one and 0% of the market for the other, but somewhere in between, so to predict that a company must market to one group and not the other is simply misguided.
Some people want a color screen or extra features like a radio, which is detrimental to long batery life. Some people want long battery life, which is severly compromised with color screens or added features. The ratio of these groups is not 100% of the market for one, etc., either.
And some people want to carry around TV shows and movies as computer files and watch them on a tiny screen on a portable device, which will thus not allow them to concentrate on any other activity while they’re doing it. There people ARE a very small part of the market and can probably support a company like iRiver, but they are not the majority. The majority have chosen the iPod, as it is.
Why does one device have to do everything? I’m HAPPY that my iPod and my Palm are two different machines — they’re both good at what they do. Why don’t these analysts predict that Ford has got to start making their cars incorporate features from Hoover vacuum cleaners, or lose market share? It sure would be nice to have a car that could vacuum your house, right?
What is with this obsession that ANALysts seem to have with PDAs?
Ironically, I use my 2nd Gen iPod in exactly the same way I used my old Handspring Visor (and Palm before that). It holds my appointment and contacts, and it sets off alarms for meetings. For me, it already is a PDA.
When the iPod becomes a PDA it will no longer be an MP3 player. PDA’s with hard drives will play music. If that’s what you want, buy one.
If you want a fully integrated MP3 player Apple makes the top 3. Buy one of theirs.
If you want to look at photos and watch movies in full colour as well as play MP3’s Apple makes 2 different ones with 12 inch screens. If you buy one they include a decent personal computer with a great OS with it. The cheapest one, the 12″ iBook starts at around $1000.
Follower you hit the nail on the head. iPods are cool because they play music. That’s what they’re for. They don’t have to incorporate everything because then it gets big and heavy and less elegant.
Every time I read some idiot analyst bemoaning the fact the iPod doesn’t have extra features like a PDA or video capabilities I want to scream. Why would I want video on a tiny screen??! I can’t watch video while I work out at the gym. I can’t watch video while I’m driving my car. I can’t watch video while I’m walking down the street. Why bloat the iPod? Why make it more complicated? If I want something with a PDA and video I’d get a laptop.
It plays music, that’s what I want it for. I don’t think I’d be rushing to be a car that vacuums my house either.
I agree with PeterJ and the others. Mobile (cell) phones are being morphed into PDA’s. PDA sales have peaked as stand alone models. Music players such as the iPod will remain what they are I believe. Even the deal with Motorola to allow downloading of a dozen or so songs on to a cell phone is only an “extra”. Dedicated music players will remain popular because they do what they do better.
Glick7 will, of course, mention that the inclusion of an integral microphone in an iPod would be a technically simple change that would probably not even change the existing case – except for the microphone hole.
Intergral voice recording for the iPod would seem to be a natural step – that would increase Apple’s penetration of corporations with its Trojan Horse – the iPod.
Sorry to sound like a broken record on this, but I just can’t figure out why Apple has not included an integral microphone with the iPod.
I am wondering why everyone seems to think that a color screen is so desirable. I recently bought a new cell phone with a color display and I hate it. The problem is that a color screen washes out in the sunlight, making it nearly impossible to read. The LCD display found in the iPod is gets better with more light on the screen. I would rather be able to read the screen than see a list of names in color. IMHO
I disagree with Glick7’s desire for a microphone. You can already add that functionality on if you need it for $40 with Griffin iTalk.
I seriously doubt any corporation would start buying their employees $300 iPods just because they have microphones.
You can still get a microcassette recorder for $25 or a digital one for $50 if you need to record. Which choice do you honestly think a corporation would go for?
Once again I’ll say it, the iPod plays music, that’s what it’s for.
Hi Peter J.
While I can see your point of view about the “purity” of the iPod as a music-only device, let me comment further about some of your points.
1/ Cost of iPod vs. other recorders.
Most corporations (including ours) certainly don’t use $25 microrecorders or $50 digital recorders. Olympus & Sony have the market with products that run $200 to $400 in a professional environment.
So… the iPod would certainly be an option if it had the capability. Its other capabilities as a backup hard-drive or transfer media for large files would make it the first choice IF it fulfilled the basic recording mission.
2/ Add on recorder for the iPod
Yes, there are such devices, and I will undoubtedly bite the bullet soon, but they make the iPod so much larger (relatively) and also add a “jury-rigged” quality to the device.
In short, with an integral microphone, the iPod becomes a universal high-capacity recording device, that doubles as a backup or portable harddrive – which HAPPENS to play MP3s.
Without the integral microphone, the iPod remains an MP3 player that can be jury-rigged as a recorder.
While the usefulness to the end-user is the same, its a big difference when trying to order the device as a primary voice recorder in a corporate environment.
The iPod is the best Trojan Horse that Apple ever produced. Why wouldn’t you want to inject this Windows-Killer into corporate North America?
Plug it the adaptor and it records too. Wooooo…..
I’d be shocked if Apple didn’t have all kinds of strange prototype micro-hard-drive-wrapped-in-a-gadget type devices being messed around with. The fascinating thing about the iPod isn’t the device itself, but rather that Apple found a new way of creating a product–instead of spending years shitting hundreds of millions of dollars into a clusterfsck like Newton, they imagined a product and quickly gathered together the pieces needed to make it work, cleanly and efficiently.
The problem with the MSFT videobrick and other such devices is that there is no apparent consumer demand for them–no one saying, boy I’d really like to watch a movie on a 2″ screen stuck on the side/top of a brick.
Know anyone interested in edit DV on a 2″ screen? I don’t.
One of the reasons I wouldn’t mind an iPod/PDA/Phone/camera/audio recording combo is to save on space in my wife’s handbag
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She has to carry all this stuff around – it would be nice if one device could do all this stuff and do it well. Apple could/would be a logical choice at creating such multi-function devices (in fact, I wish they’d make mobile phones, or at least an interface and licence it. Current phones suck.)
Sure, technology over the years has shrunk lots of stuff down, but we now have to cart around so much crapola (and corresponding power supplies, cables etc), it’s bordering on crazy. (And of course, if you’ve bought all this tech, there’s no longer any need to carry around a wallet as you’d have buggar all money anyway
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Whilst a small iPod screen makes movies unviewable, with new rollable screens on the horizon, I’d be intrigued to see what could be done with those.
Or just make one whole side of the machine a touch screen and do away with scroll wheels and buttons – programming them on the screen instead.
3G phones generally require you to hold the device in your hand when talking – so you won’t look like a dick holding something like this up to your ear (coz you won’t be.)
Innovation is the key to combining these pieces of tech together into one device, saving space in girls’ handbags everywhere.
convergence doesn’t work. The cellphone, NOT the pda, is the future.
The key to all this is practical functionality.
Why cart around a portable dvd player with a 4″ screen that only plays dvds when you could carry a 12″laptop around! – and as well as play dvds, you can surf the net, edit your films, retouch your photos, write letters, listen to music, play games and do any thing else!
I personally think the convergence one device will end up as 2 portable devices; one for video and one for everthing else that dosn’t need a viewable screen.
MP3 players will over years will merge into the mobile phone or portable communication device.
Portable video on the other hand is another matter; no one is prepared to watch a 2hour film on a 4″ screen and have a 4hour battery life on the device – and if you do, within 1 years your’e gonna need glasses!
Apple will come up with something in the future which is going to solve all this.
Microsoft has developed a portable video device BUT at $699 no one is gonna buy it. Whatever device that is developed to do all this stuff is gonna have to have the following for it to be attracive to consumers:
– Consumer attractive price!
– Practical design
– Easy to use
– Easy to upgrade with addons
– Long battery life
– light to carry around
– Multi-functional
– Colour screen (for video)
– Expandability and compatible with ALL non propriatary formats
There is only one company that can come up with this device – and that company is APPLE.
Better a simple, functional, and elegant device that does few things well than a multi-purpose, one-shoe-fits-all, can’t-do-one-thing-well monstrosity.
The distance between an idea to a marketable product is not a staight line.
May I suggest that the analysts mentioned in the article are indeed serious about it.
My point is that we tend to forget one thing : analysts own PDAs coz’ they got lured into thinking it would improve their… hm, productivity. So now they are led to believe that any mobile device such as an iPod should also carry PDA features they have been driven to think useful.
I use my 30gb ipod as a pda anyway – It syncs my contacts, address book, calenders, news, files, documents and of course my 1860 songs in m music library!
.Mac is fantastic if you have an ipod!
Apple should make something like this. Forget a PDA/iPod. Make a smaller computer
http://www.tiqit.com/specs.shtml
It will run any x86 OS. You can connect it to a keyboard, mouse, Monitor, etc and take it with you.
Too bad it does not run OS X. I could then carry my computer with all my files in my pocket and use it anywhere and have a dock at home/work.
What I think Apple should look seriously at is allowing people to view photos or videos from the iPod on a TV. ie you include an S-video out or some such on the iPod so that you can link it to a TV directly. That is something I would use given that I already use an iPod to transfer photos and videos about, but play them on a mac not a TV. This I think is more of a goer than including shitty 2in screens to view said pictures/video.
Leave the iPod alone. The iPod does one thing VERY WELL. Don’t turn it into something which does many things poorly.
The iPod is a basic PDA with a limited input device. You can put your contacts, calender, and files on it and you can play games.
If you want more, get a multifunctional phone, or better yet a small laptop.
But the numerous websites where iPod devotees swap tips on how to squeeze ever more functionality out of their players suggests their appetites are not limited to music.
There obviously IS demand.
Convergence is already happening. One year from now cell phones will do everything: phone, PDA, Mp3-DivX player, Photo and Video camera. As soon as Fuel Cell batteries and cheaper mini-HD arrive, cell phone manufacturers will have no choice but integrate those functions to keep providing value for the same price as chipset technology makes current ones nearly free.
And they will be as easy to use as an iPod: just look how many modern cell phones offer different interface functionality while closed by showing a mini-screen plus some minimal key layout. It could be an iPod-like disc, instead.
Pure devices such as the iPod Mini will have to become far cheaper than now to justify themselves. You carry your phone everywhere. If several devices compete for your pocket’s volume, the cell phone is not the one that is going to lose.
Meat of Moose head the nail on its head! (“Better a simple, functional, and elegant device that does few things well than a multi-purpose, one-shoe-fits-all, can’t-do-one-thing-well monstrosity.”)
The iPod is not the first MP3 player, nor does it have the most storage, nor is it the smallest or lightest, nor does it have the longest lasting battery. It doesn’t have a radio or microphone or wireless connectivity. It doesn’t interface with the Internet. I can’t call my sister on it. I can’t show photos of my latest vacation on it. I can’t watch a rerun of Friends. No. No. No.
What the iPod does have is two buttons to control its menus, three buttons to control the music player, and a scroll wheel to aid in both menu and music control.
It has a small black and white display. It has a Firewire port (that can be used for USB 2). It has an expanded audio port. It has a hold button.
It has a user interface that uses these minimalist evolved controls as well as can be imagined.
Create a package that has acceptable storage, acceptable size, acceptable battery life together with state of the art physical and procedural interface that takes just a few seconds to learn and you have a winner. Put the package in an intelligent, esthetically pleasing form and you have a super winner.
This winner evolves intelligently so as to make the whole package better — more storage, more battery life, less size and weight, more refined (that is, simpler) interface. That’s Apple’s growth plan. Until the competition catches up with generation one of the iPod, Apple’s plan is working well.
Note that the extraneous stuff, the stuff used to compare features, stuff like games and contacts and alarm clock, all that stuff — NOT ANY OF IT interferes in any way with the basic functionality of the iPod. Talking points don’t get in the way of a user enjoying her music.
Apple is so smart on this product.