“A week from now, on July 23rd, Apple (AAPL) will hold its quarterly earnings call,” Sam Grobart reports for Businessweek. “While most attention will be on the iPhone and the iPad lines, a third product line will experience a milestone of sorts.”
“As Benedict Evans of Enders Analysis pointed out recently, the iPod is about to be eclipsed by the iPhone in total cumulative sales,” Grobart reports. “At the end of the last quarter, 375 million iPods had been sold worldwide since the device was introduced in 2001. The iPhone, which came out in 2007, had sold 356 million by the same point. Given that Apple sold 37 million iPhones in the previous quarter, compared to nearly 6 million iPods, it seems a safe bet that the iPhone will overtake the iPod in cumulative sales. It will have done so in half the time.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Every iPhone ever sold is also an “iPod.”
The iPad is even outselling the iPhone. It took the iPad just over 10 months to sell 100 million devices which the iPod needed 23 months and the iPhone, 16 months. But considering all iPhones and iPads are iPods, why is this a surprise?
http://aaplinvestors.net/stats/iphonevsipod/
As steve Jobs once said. “An iPod, a phone and an internet device. An iPod, a phone and an internet device. Are you getting it? An iPod, a phone and an internet device….”
you mean it’s an iPod, a phone and an internet device?
and an iPad mini should be a phone also
a media player
a internet browser
a camera
a phone
it would be the biggest on the market
the most righteous sized phonlet to have
one device for everyday outside usage
not a iPhone, a iPad, a MacBook Air, and iWatch to lug around… one device with large enough real-estate to do some work like applications that Apple makes so beautifully,
Keynotes, Numbers, Pages all on iPad mini that cal call out and receive calls like an iPhone – I am still waiting Apple
Some phone carriers (eg. Rogers in Canada) offer an iOS app that brings full phone functionality to non-phones. I use the service on my computer, too. I can make and receive phone calls as if it was my cell phone doing so. I can transfer a call from my computer to my phone without disconnecting the call. So to wait on Apple is missing the boat a bit. This desire is being addressed already.
i prefer internet solution as other smartphones at the time really sucked at web – pocket computer is so 1980s
Like the MDN Take says, every iPhone contains an iPod. So number of iPhones sold can never exceed the number of iPods sold. Or, if that’s not an acceptable thought, then iPhone sales are cannibalizing iPod sales!!! OMG!!!
The solution is simple really and is looking at Apple in the face. Do away with the iPod touch and replace it with a cheaper iPhone. Problem solved.
And be tied to a contract? Not happening.
or make perhaps make a sim slot on the iPod touch – similar to iPad with cellular data plan optional – oh pooh
Simplification of the line is really what would things clear :
iPhone — Large 9.7 in / Medium 7.9 in / Small 4.0 in
iPad — Large 9.7 in / Medium 7.9 in / Small 4.0 in
The difference being, a phone has a sim slot for mobile cellular data connection where iPad would be wifi only. No longer a need for iPods once the iWatch arrive; meaning the Touch also vanishes from the line. Clean – clear – easy to understand. And all screens are retina to stand above the competition in quality and value.
Fantastic idea! Take an iPod touch, but just add a SIM slot and cellular data connection. And I know exactly what Apple should call it: iPhone! Catchy, right?
How about the opposite… Apple can introduce a small always-on always-worn device that serves as a wireless “hub” (hotspot) for other devices. Then, an iPod touch, with minor modifications, could act as a phone, using the “hub” for the voice connection. A WiFi-only iPad could have continuous (“cellular”) data connection through the “hub.” Macs can use it too…
So, phase out the iPhone and iPad with cellular. Why carry around multiply devices with separate cellular connections, when they can share ONE connection.
I don’t know… We’ll just have to “watch” for it. 🙂
Cheap iPhone coming soon.
The iPod may have been released in 2001, but for the first two generations, the iPod catered almost exclusively to Mac users. The 3rd gen iPod (even with its dock connector) required a FireWire connection, so it was still aimed at Mac users; PC users did not have a version of iTunes yet (they used a third-party program called MusicMatch instead).
It wasn’t until the 4th gen iPod that iPods could be connected to USB and iTunes had an equal Windows version. When Windows users became equal customers, sales really took off for iPod. That was not until 2004.
In contrast, iPhone supported Mac and PC customers equally from Day One. While iPod sales leveraged the small but loyal users on the Mac platform, iPhone sales leveraged the MUCH larger group of iPod users. The reason iPhone sales grew faster is because iPhone sales were built on the success of iPod, just as iPad sales were built on the success of iPhone. Apple ALWAYS leverages an existing strength when launching something new.
so why does it take twice as long to sell an iPod?
Because INMHO it should be between 4.5-5″ in size.
Well, mine’s 10inches
Yes agreed. So this means iPhone will never catch the iPod. However, compared on the hardware only which is what they do here I think it’s a bit like comparing Apples and Oranges.