“I was recently cleaning out a closet and came across an interesting artifact: my first iPod,” Arik Hesseldahl reports for BusinessWeek. “It was nearly eight years ago that I was among the very first people in New York City to carry around the first-generation iPod.”
Hesseldahl reports, “The iPod as many of us have known it is on the wane and giving way to a more feature-rich family of devices that in time will bear little resemblance to the trailblazing digital music players that helped Apple capture 70% of the North American market. Evidence of the iPod’s decline came July 21, when Apple disclosed its first quarterly decline in iPods sold. In the three months ended in June, Apple sold 10.2 million iPods, versus 11 million a year earlier.”
“Anticipation of the drop-off is ‘one of the original reasons’ Apple developed the iPhone and the WiFi-enabled iPod touch, Apple Chief Financial Officer Peter Oppenheimer said on a July 21 conference call with analysts. Apple is prepared for lower sales of what it calls “pocket products:” the iPod shuffle, nano, and classic,” Hesseldahl reports. “At the same time, the iPod business ‘will last for many, many years,’ Apple believes. The company has good reason to want to extend the life of a product line that’s generated $38 billion on sales of 218 million units.”
Hesseldahl writes, “What will iPod’s next generation look like? …However Apple answers that question, what’s clear is that traditional versions of the device are a thing of the past—and future iterations will have a long and vibrant future.”
Full article here.
