iPod iPod Doomed??? =O

I'm reminded of this article.

"Apple Co-Founder Wozniak: The iPod Shall Fall."

I don't think the iPod will fall or be doomed, but I do think it will change. For example, people will move to an iPod Touch/iPhone. Once capacities catch up, there will be no need for a HDD in your pocket.

The iPhone does allow your data to be up in the cloud as well as not. I doubt some subscription model will work. Those who actually read EULA's and those who are informed by those who read them, will not accept it. There is something fundamental about being able to own a song that you purchase.

I don't think you will ever see over the air purchasing of songs for the Nano or Classic. Both do not have any type of input besides a scroll wheel. I do not want to know what it's like to search for a song with a long title on that.

Technology will move towards the multi-touch. It just enables a greater variety of GUIs and more ability to do things other than music. Instead of having a sound card and a wifi chip in your pocket, the iPhone OS platform will enable a whole new bread of uses for the iPod.

The Economist had an interesting article about Nokia's "Comes With Music" platform for the UK recently. That's a subscription service I think might actually have a shot, since the monthly fee is buried in your cell phone plan, and not a separate charge.

It'll be interesting to see how it goes.

Eventually, I would not be surprised to see a subscription model overtake a pay-as-you-go model, but I'm not banking on it in the near future. And if/when it does happen, Apple will adapt, if they're not already leading the charge.

This is the company that was ahead of the curve abandoning floppy drives, and created largely created the digital music revolution. Does anyone honestly think this company won't be able to adapt to a changing demand for the way consumers get their music?

Everything is doomed eventually. Had you told someone in the 80s that the Walkman would decline they would have thought you were crazy. Had you told someone in the 90s that the Discman's days were numbered they would have laughed at you. Trends change, and more often than not companies can't adapt quick enough.

This whole "cloud" thing is a dead end. Do you really want all your music, photos and documents on some corporation's server? Me neither. Also, remember that the majority of people in the United States live in rural areas. Folks in big cities tend to be very self-important, and believe that everyone has or will have great wi-fi or other wireless connections. Most don't. Cloud-only music players are fine in theory, but will never ever ever ever ever ever sell well. People like to own what they buy. "The Cloud" is really just a short term catch phrase thrown around mostly by dumb people. It's not the future. Never will be.

Demosthenes X said:

The Economist had an interesting article about Nokia's "Comes With Music" platform for the UK recently. That's a subscription service I think might actually have a shot, since the monthly fee is buried in your cell phone plan, and not a separate charge.

It'll be interesting to see how it goes.

Eventually, I would not be surprised to see a subscription model overtake a pay-as-you-go model, but I'm not banking on it in the near future. And if/when it does happen, Apple will adapt, if they're not already leading the charge.

This is the company that was ahead of the curve abandoning floppy drives, and created largely created the digital music revolution. Does anyone honestly think this company won't be able to adapt to a changing demand for the way consumers get their music?

Click to expand...

The biggest problem with subscription services is that when the service dies? You will need to re-download all your music. I think subscription services could work if the downloaded owns the song without DRM.

This is the best argument against subscription music I can think of.

Atomike said:

This whole "cloud" thing is a dead end. Do you really want all your music, photos and documents on some corporation's server? Me neither. Also, remember that the majority of people in the United States live in rural areas. Folks in big cities tend to be very self-important, and believe that everyone has or will have great wi-fi or other wireless connections. Most don't. Cloud-only music players are fine in theory, but will never ever ever ever ever ever sell well. People like to own what they buy. "The Cloud" is really just a short term catch phrase thrown around mostly by dumb people. It's not the future. Never will be.

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Ah I forgot the "real americans" don't have wifi. (Sorry, I had to say it.)

I think you are right about the internet not being as pervasive as so of us tend to think. I also agree with you that I am VERY not comfortable with anyone knowing everything I listen to or view. However, many people in my generation do not have this fear. I work at a University computer lab where I will need to ask students their password to their personal and/or school email They share it freely without a second thought. That is scary.

Atomike said:

This whole "cloud" thing is a dead end. Do you really want all your music, photos and documents on some corporation's server? Me neither. Also, remember that the majority of people in the United States live in rural areas. Folks in big cities tend to be very self-important, and believe that everyone has or will have great wi-fi or other wireless connections. Most don't. Cloud-only music players are fine in theory, but will never ever ever ever ever ever sell well. People like to own what they buy. "The Cloud" is really just a short term catch phrase thrown around mostly by dumb people. It's not the future. Never will be.

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I live in San Antonio, Texas which is a fairly large city, but we have only a few hot spots on my side of town and in fact I only know 1 other person that has both a computer and the internet (now I don't know many people but still...) and in fact that computer he has is my old mac mini that I sold him when I upgraded from my mac mini to macbook, and even while I have internet at work it's wired, the only decent WiFi access I have is at my house. Now I realize some other places have much more WiFi access, but to think that a city as big as San Antonio is so lacking on WiFi access I don't think the cloud thing will take off for at least 2 or more years, which gives Apple plenty of time to put it into iPods if that's what they decide to do.

I will give the writer credit for good writing, but I think the whole theory is bunk.

People who live and breathe with the Internet seem to love these types of fantasies. Some will see one instance of something happening and then come out with a pipe dream of it replacing running water and the automobile. People do this to death about DVDs/Blu-ray Discs vs. digital downloads. The laughable part of the digital video downloads is the fact that iTunes just this year overtook Walmart in music sales. I would wager that most people still buy music on CDs since you'll only find iTunes and Amazon in your top whatever of where to buy music online. How these people think the Internet can handle the bandwidth of everybody downloading video at the same rate blows my mind.

We move to "The Cloud." Oh, don't we wish the Internet blanketed the Earth? Thing is, it doesn't. Not even close. The best we're at is the cell phone data networks, and go take a look at any cell company's US coverage map. HUGE dead zones in one of the richest countries on the planet. How good is Internet coverage in the southern hemisphere? Probably spotty at best.

My best guess is Internet-enabled portables like iPhone, iPod touch, Zune, BlackBerry, etc. will find "unlimited" music in services like Pandora and AM, FM, and satellite radio. I'm waiting for more stations to get online and iPhone friendly, but there are a good few already on.

The biggest argument for storing stuff elsewhere is disk failure. I have probably 16GB+ of songs on this laptop, so it would be BAD if the hard drive failed. But I use Time Machine to back up to a hard drive on the network. I'd love to have a Blu-ray burner to put all of that stuff on one disc to store remotely in case of fire, but that's another battle for another day.

Eddie.exe said:

Also in B4 "MSN obviously wants iPod dead, it's a Microsoft site!" That doesn't mean they have to be biased about everything, they're not.

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It doesn't mean they are biased about everything, but if you look at the nonsense that comes from Microsoft recently (the Apple Tax! 6.9 million iPhones don't impress us! People want choice! Seinfeld is a PC! Watch Bill Gates wiggling his bum!) everything coming from MSN about Apple has to be watched with more than a grain of salt.

Now this article takes a buzzword (cloud computing) and tries to apply it where it doesn't make sense. The iPod use cloud computing where it makes sense - the "Genius" service collects data from millions of iPods, connects it all and uses it to give the user an improved user experience. What MSN suggests is nonsense. I don't want to replicate my 60 GB of music on some companies' server, and I think the music industry will get a heart attack anyway if they hear about it.

The other nonsense is of course the assumption that if any change _were_ needed, Apple wouldn't manage to make that change. What a nonsense. Microsoft is the dinosaur, not Apple.

Eddie.exe said:

They don't have to be stored on a corporation's server. I can sync my Zune with my PC from anywhere via Wifi. It doesn't necessarly have to be on a companies server. You can simply connect to your own network.

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That's interesting. So your computer is turned on all the time. It is behind an opened firewall. It allows access to your data via WiFi. And it runs Windows.

This is a frightening combination.

I loved this bit from the Telegraph article:

"If consumer technology spending plummets, and the indications are it will, Apple should be better placed than others to survive as many of their customers buy their products with almost religious devotion.

While many companies would give their all for such strong customer loyalty, both Mr Wozniak and Mr Jobs "don't like the fact that it's a bit of a religion".

Woz:
"I would like to have the users influence the next generation," he says. "With a religion you're not allowed to challenge anything. I want our customers to challenge us."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/...-on-the-iPod-iPhone-and-future-for-Apple.html

I think that this "cloud" idea might work nice in the US. But here in Germany you will face severe problems. Virtually no free wifi networks = 3G only way to stream music, apps, data etc. And that brings you to the second problem: coverage. 3G is only available in the bigger cities and when you travel by train or car, you don't have coverage in all places. .... So I prefer with "offline"-capable solutions.

jodelli said:

I loved this bit from the Telegraph article:

"If consumer technology spending plummets, and the indications are it will, Apple should be better placed than others to survive as many of their customers buy their products with almost religious devotion.

While many companies would give their all for such strong customer loyalty, both Mr Wozniak and Mr Jobs "don't like the fact that it's a bit of a religion".

Woz:
"I would like to have the users influence the next generation," he says. "With a religion you're not allowed to challenge anything. I want our customers to challenge us."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/...-on-the-iPod-iPhone-and-future-for-Apple.html

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Those are interesting quotes. I do think we will need to keep Jobs and Woz (does he even have an active role? I don't think so, but I'm not too sure.) on their toes. We should challenge them. Otherwise complacency will take it's place and Apple will stagnate as a company.


I do think Apple is better off than must to live through hard economic times. iPods are now priced low enough that they can be bought for children as Christmas gifts without much of a second thought.