“The iPod is doomed. Not this month, not this year, and maybe not the next. But soon enough, Apple will lose its hold on the marketplace for both digital-audio players and digital songs. It’s inevitable,” John J. Sviokla writes for Fast Company.
“Already the iPod’s features are being copied by Samsung, Dell, iRiver, Sony, and others. Competitors are adding tuners, cameras, gaming, and more to devices. They’re rolling out a host of new music services. Meanwhile, the iPod has not changed much since its debut four years ago — and Apple’s latest iteration, the iPod shuffle, has met with limited success. The competitors will win. Why? Because they have created an economic ecosystem that powers innovation. Apple hasn’t,” Sviokla writes.
“Apple should be opening up the iPod and licensing iTunes to others so they can build out the ecosystem. If it doesn’t, the iPod will lose, just as the brilliant Macintosh computer ceded market leadership years ago to IBM’s dowdier — but more accessible — personal computer. The iPod and iTunes, like any closed system, can give Apple outsized profits — but only for a time. Ultimately, no one company can out-innovate the market,” Sviokla writes.
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Supposing that the market will remain stagant for 20 years is foolish. Apple’s iPod will change and evolve; it isn’t a Sony Walkman cassette player that stays virtually the same for 20 years. And the iPod isn’t the Mac, so stop trying to compare them. Also, please explain how the Apple iPod by HP (with 8% of the market, making it the number 2 digital media player) and the upcoming Motorola iTunes phone line constitute a closed system?
The Macintosh platform required and still requires huge investments by developers to create compatible software. So, when faced with budgetary contraints, they chose and still sometimes choose to go with the most popular platforms. The iPod simply plays music that can be encoded, for very little cost, in any format the “developers” (musicians and labels) desire: AAC, MP3, WMA, etc. The music doesn’t need to be rewritten, recorded, and remastered. It’s like writing Photoshop once and then pressing a button to translate it for use on Mac, Windows, Linux, etc. To draw an analogy between Mac OS licensing and the iPod/iTunes symbiotic relationship simply highlights the writer’s ignorance of the vast differences between the two business situations.
[UPDATE, 10:55pm: And, as “CDN guy” brings up below, what about the iPod economy of third-party accessory and peripheral makers? See related article below.]
Related MacDailyNews articles:
Report: Apple may be meeting goal of selling 1 million iPod shuffles per month – July 15, 2005
Apple’s iPod shuffle takes nearly 60 percent of US flash-player market in March – May 04, 2005
The iPod is not the Mac, so stop trying to compare them – August 13, 2004
Apple iPod owners spend millions on accessories, keep ‘iPod economy’ churning – March 04, 2005
but there is an economic ecosystem out there – iPod peripherals!
“Apple’s latest iteration, the iPod shuffle, has met with limited success.”
Oh really now? Seeing as how they’ve sold more iPod shuffles this year alone (1 million per month estimated sales) than all other manufacturers have sold total players combined, I’d hardly call it a “limited success.” This just goes to show once again that any idiot with a keyboard and a Windows license can publish drivel on the internet…
“”The iPod is doomed. Not this month, not this year, and maybe not the next. But soon enough, Apple will lose its hold on the marketplace for both digital-audio players and digital songs. It’s inevitable,”
Must be nice to make predictions that are so open ended that you never have to be accountable for them.
All scientists will tell you that someday, not 10 years from now, not 100, or a thousand, or maybe even a million years from now, the sun will burn out killing all life on earth. It will happen soon enough, it’s inevitable.
sounds like they’re being sarcastic…
but then again, they could just be idiots
mike, I know where my vote will go: idiots.
Also, not only the sun will turn into a Nova, it’s inevitable, but also the Earth will be hit by an asteroid: it happened before, it’s going to happen maybe not this month, not this year but soon enough it will happen. It’s inevitable.
http://www.diamondcluster.com/people/svioklaj/personal.htm
How can you be this educated and clueless at the same time!
Where he works:
http://www.diamondcluster.com/People/BoardBio.asp?src=svioklaj
who gives cares about fm tuners? people get ipod hook ups for their car so they can listen to the ipod not the radio. why listen to commercials and static, when you can have digital audio on demand, and no satellites please?
look more functionality is fine, but people need to realize there is a trade off between ease of use and the integration of more features. the genius of the ipod is that it holds and plays large digital music collections in such an elegant way. apple has done some thinking, about functionality and user experience. you need to do more than simply determined how many things can be stuffed into ipod; you need to think about what you really want out of the device, and try to maximize that goal.
“Windows 95 is doomed. Not this month, not this year, and maybe not the next. But soon enough, Apple will lose its hold on the marketplace for both digital-audio players and digital songs. It’s inevitable.”
what a dumbass. Here’s a prediction for you. Everything in it’s current state without changing will fade away. WOW how profound!
iPod Shuffle? Limited success?
Try telling that to Sim Wong Hoo, of beleaguered Creative Technology, who watched the iPod Shuffle take nearly 50% of the flash-player market in just three months.
Seriously, think for ten seconds before you write drivel.
Also note that a closed system is one that does not let other platforms use it. Apple is the only music download company that supports PC & Mac with virtually the same software. Name one other company that supports both PC & Mac? There is your closed system John J. Sviokla.
Welcome to the macobservers list of doom for Apple. This list has been running for at least 5 years. I’m sure this story will be added sometime this week. Why is everyone comparing the iPod to the Mac of yester year anyways. The Macs of today are winning market share. The iPod has just evolved a couple of weeks ago giving everyone a color display for the same prices. I wouldn’t doubt if the iPod imini is next to recieve a color display.
So basically this guy has his head where the sun don’t shine. The usual I don’t know what I’m talking about, don’t have any facts writer on the internet. Bla,bla,bla,………
This guy looks like Kevin Spacey! lol
It’s Dr. John J. Sviokla. His Ph.D must be in “uncreative thinking” with a minor in “absurdity”!
OOOPS
“Windows 95 is doomed. Not this month, not this year, and maybe not the next. But soon enough, Microsoft will lose its hold on the marketplace for both computer operating systems and productivity software. It’s inevitable.”
Monday, July 25, 3015 – 10:13 AM EST
Apple’s reluctant to open up their licensing restrictions has finally cost them the top spot in the hotly contested holographic music market place. The revolutionary Pepsi PPod, developed by Richard Scully (great great grandson of John Sculley) gained 44.3689% market share to Apple’s 44.3688%.
Yeah right…dream on Fast Company.
Wow. So the iPod’s simplified, perfected design is stagnant, but its competitors’ desperate plays for attention by adding ever more bells and whistles and buttons is innovative? Talk about clueless.
You know why iPod is unbeatable? Two reasons:
First, It’s iconic. Everyone knows what an iPod looks like. The competitors are a jumbled mess. There’s not even any consistency within brand names. No Creative player is instantly identifiable.
The second reason is the dock port that enables all the myriad peripherals. As I understand it, no other player has a similar control scheme, so this stuff isn’t even possible on the wannabe players.
The iPod has won, just like the Walkman won. It will lose market share as the product becomes a commodity, but it still be the number-one seller. And just like the Walkman, it will stay number one until the market moves away from the product altogether. When digital audio players are replaced by the Next Best Thing, only then will the iPod Age come to an end.
This is the same magazine that in Jan 2004 publish a cover article about Apple and Steve Jobs and the limits of innovation. They claimed that the iPod would not save Apple and that innovation would not help them either. Good call, morons. Steve is a billionare because he sees the world five years ahead, where most consultants and business writers are lucky to see it six months from now or should I say as it was six months ago). By the time the competition catches up, Steve and Apple will be on to the next big thing.
diamondcluster.com…those who don’t create or innovate, just sit around yakking about those who do and making airy-fairy predictions about same.
diamondcluster.com=circle jerk, sviolka must be the pivot man
DOOM DOOM – THE WORLD IS GONNA END!!!
FFS what is it with these ANAL-ists – as long as Apple evolves the ipod then im sorry to say ‘the ipod is NOT doomed’.
It is here to stay.
May not be in the same form factor as it is today – but it’s here to stay!
SJ has said that if they start losing significant market share, Apple will open the ipod up to other inferior music formats.
Don’t forget the fact that car makers are putting ipod dics in factory fitted cars now, a whole economy on accessories, ipod phones and Apple linking with other partners and putting the itunes brand on key music events it looks like these guys are talking out there ass as usual.
Yes the mobile phone MAY one day de-throne the ipod in it’s current form factor – BUT Apple is working on phone with motorola – so that base is covered.
Apple long as Apple adds new features, services etc for the ipod brand – making it a unique and desirable product then they will retain their lead.
The Shuffle is a fashion accessory already—people dont care what they do , they care what color they are….The IPOD is already ubiquitous–it doesnt matter what it does or will do—Imagine its 1960 or so and some one is saying look we can make a hoola hoop that is just as good as the one that the hoola hoop people make—OR—our Jello is actually better than Jello’s Jello—its too late. You arent hoola hoop–you arent jello –you arent IPOD. And oh yeah—Im not sure but I think pretty much we are all doomed–sooner or later–I hope much later–but sooner or later—this war’s gonna end.
I quote Brett Favre:
“if you don’t think I can do it, just bet against me.”
Yeah, i know, i eat lemongrass and tofu, but damnit, if i don’t like the spunk in that kid from Mississippi…
re: It’s Dr. John J. Sviokla. His Ph.D must be in “uncreative thinking” with a minor in “absurdity”!
All because he’s got a Ph.D don’t mean he’s got a brain!
I know alot of intellegant people that know fuck all!
I just don’t understand why people want to see Apple lose so badly. I thought America was all about the underdog winning – when did it get turned around? It’s Apple vs everyone else, Apple is the sole company with a cross-platform solution, and Apple is winning by a mile.
The iPod isn’t just an MP3 player, it’s a platform. The current iPod as we know today is “doomed”, but it will evolve, like everything else. It doesn’t take a paid analyst to figure that out.
Another retarded “journalist” commanding on the ” closed” system of iPod without doing any homework. The standard of “journalism” just keeps sinking. MDN readers don’t waste your time reading this crap!!!