When in the future will iPods no longer dominate the market ?

I voted "never" because I think that MP3 players in general are going to go the way of the dodo as convergence becomes more of a reality. iPhone points the way. In a few years it's likely that the whole idea of a stand alone media player will be a thing of the past.

I voted "never" because I think that MP3 players in general are going to go the way of the dodo as convergence becomes more of a reality. iPhone points the way. In a few years it's likely that the whole idea of a stand alone media player will be a thing of the past.Never happen. I'll be dust long before the idea of carrying a phone will become something I actually want to do. Even if it becomes necessary, I'll do what most of my friends who do have cell phones do: take the cheapest, fewest features, no camera phone they can get. You'd have to give me an iPhone, pay my contract, and then actually still pay me money to get me to use it.

By all means, there will be convergent products, there have been for several years, it's not like the iPhone is innovative outside of the touch interface, but they've yet to dent the stand alone market place and I doubt they ever will. Things have to go together in a logical manner for one product to actually replace two or more other products, otherwise they just coincide, like cell phones with cameras and actually useful cameras. There's nothing about a portable phone that screams media player beyond the fact that everybody is trying to figure out how to make money on it by delivering tertiary services with it.

There have been portable media devices around as long as I've been alive, they'll be around long after I'm dead and they won't be replaced by cell phones no matter how much Jobs and stock investors would like to see it happen.

Never happen. I'll be dust long before the idea of carrying a phone will become something I actually want to do.

Sure. But the inclusion of a phone module isn't a requirement for a converged device that's only part PMP. I'm not suggesting that iPhone will replace all Apple PMPs, but that converged devices that can interact with all sorts of other products (Apple TV, desktop Macs, the InterTube and so forth) will become something that's not correctly described as a PMP so much as a device that has a number of critical abilities, PMP functions being only a small part of the package.

I'm not disagreeing with any of that, except to say that the evolution of iPod into the "media remote at the heart of Apple's entertainment ecosystem" isn't really a matter of kludging together a Frankenstein device. My only point is that the evolution of the MP3 player/PMP is likely to take it into an area that is no longer recognizable as "iPod" in the years to come. In other words, iPods won't dominate the market, not because something different comes along, but because iPod itself won't really exist anymore. It'll just be a software module in a more fully functional device, just like it is now in iPhone and Touch.

Okay, whatever. Sorry I even mentioned it now.

I'm not certain that I think there will be a time when dedicated media players become a thing of the past, but with the insane amount of young kids (I'm talking 6, 7, 8 year olds) carrying cell-phones around and the ever-lowering cost of electronics, I can see media-based cell-phones at least outselling the regular media players.

They don't go together period, a cell phone has no business being a media player IMHO. Unless there is some serious battery updates and the devices make SURE the media features or the phone features are EQUAL to a device that does each individually they will never defeat Portable Media Players..they simply do not go together and companies are always half assing one or the other.

In the iPhones case it looks like it half assed the phone features.

They don't go together period, a cell phone has no business being a media player IMHO.

Personal opinion is fine, but they are progressing in that direction all the time, as Surf Monkey said.

I'm sure some people said televisions rotted the brains of people too, but now we're entering the high-def era. I love my iPhone: I can listen to a song and take a phone call and hang up and go back to listening to music simply by pitching a tiny, finger-tip sized clip on my earphones. I'd say they go together quite well.

If Apple made a portable tape player, and put it in commercials like its the best new thing ever, everyone would go back to listening to cassette tapes. Thats how they have everyone in check.

If Apple made a portable tape player, and put it in commercials like its the best new thing ever, everyone would go back to listening to cassette tapes. Thats how they have everyone in check.

Hogwash. Apple releases failures all the time. AppleTV anyone?

Less than 2 years if they continue to release such buggy iPods.

basically, it will be a majorly juiced iPhone. it will be your digital camera, music player, cell phone, secondary computer, and portable tv all in one. apple won't be alone when the iPod goes down, because every other single-task device is going with it (the digital camera, cell phone, etc). so i think the end of the iPod is also going to be a new beginning for technology. everything will start to get packed into one machine.When this device actually exists and the focused function devices actually disappear, come find me, I'd be happy to pay you a crisp $100 bill (I'll even adjust for inflation). The myth of the convergent device that does everything and slays everything is as common place as alien abduction and bigfoot, and with pretty much equal reason to believe in it.

The reason it can't exist is the same reason we still have stand alone cameras, PDAs, & music players: money and features. It costs a lot more than even an iPhone to get a good camera, it costs a lot more than several iPhones to get a very good camera, and it costs more than a couple of computers to get a very, very good camera. While the curve may become more flat over time, it's not going to go away. Plus, just the fact that the very, very good camera is far too big (due to optics which cannot be reduced in size) to carry every day, let alone merge with a phone, blows the idea into the farthest galaxy. So, you can stick a camera onto a cell phone, but you can't stick a good camera onto a cell phone - maybe decent, but never a good one. The optics and CCD necessary for high quality alone take up more physical space than anyone will invest in a cell phone, and the cost of the optics outstrips the cost that anyone will invest in a cell phone.

PDAs require a larger, higher quality screen than a phone, and while the iPhone shows us how you can make both devices in one acceptable in theory, it's still an unnecessarily large form factor for a phone. There is never going to be a point that everybody is going to want to carry around a large dimensioned phone just to achieve features that may or may not be important to them. Just like today, you'll see everything from the person with the equivalent of ultra slim phone and tiny blue tooth headset that they barely notice they have on, all the way to the person with the large screen smart phone checking his stocks and reading the NYT while he makes VOIP conference calls on a head set. Until there's a point where the interface is freed from the physical size of the device with some sort of sci-fi scenario where the user can see the equivalent of a 50" plasma television (with requisite touch screen) in his cyber contacts projected from a device smaller than a funsize Snicker's bar in his pocket, these devices simply can't be fused to the dissolution of both because people are different with different needs.

People are the real reason why this won't happen. We all have different priorities. It's why there is a Nintendo DS, Nintendo Wii, and a Microsoft X-Box 360 dominating in the games market, while the PSP, PS4, and PC hold their respectable share today - that's six different platforms doing the "same" thing. No matter where the technology goes, there are different visions for how to implement it. One person feels the need to be connected to their friends, coworkers, their blog space, their email, voicemail, etc. while on the go, while another just wants the ability to call a tow truck if their car breaks down on the highway. The more sophisticated any of these functions becomes in theory, the more impossible the convergent device becomes. What if what you want is the future equivalent of Sony's games, Microsoft's office manager helper client, and Apple's media player in one device? You can't pick and choose what will wind up on this mythical device, and so you're always stuck making sacrifices based on what you put as the highest priority (and even that begets further splintering in the market). You put yourself in the scenario of needing to upgrade everything to upgrade one thing, you find yourself putting your connectivity package at the mercy of your games developer (or vice versa) which means, quite simply, that these convergent devices can't replace the stand alones, because there's going to be a market to provide the choice, and where there's a market, there's somebody there to sell it.

Right here is where your argument completely falls apart. The reason cameras stand alone has nothing to do with money and features. It has to do with image quality. Large image sensors and large glass lenses are the primary reason cameras can't converge with other devices.Explain to me how that isn't a feature AND a function of cost?

While you're at it, explain to me how the existence of smartphones makes all the phones that aren't PDAs and all the phones that aren't PDAs magically disappear? I mean, type in PDA while excluding "phone" to the Google product search and you get over 500,000 hits. Do the same but require phone and you get about 10,000 hits.

They support my position just fine because it sure ain't "most" of the PDAs are phones, it's *some*, which is precisely my point: convergence has not ever occurred in a manner that causes the disappearance of the stand alone products it mashed together with sacrifices, and until such a point comes that two products can be combined without any sacrifices and the combination product is as cheap or only marginally more expensive than *one* of those products by itself, it never will.

If you frame the argument as "ALL STAND ALONE DEVICES MUST COMPLETELY DISAPPEAR IN ORDER FOR ANY ARGUMENT TO REFUTE MINE" then you've protected your position to the point of absurdity. The world isn't a place of absolute values, as much as framing it as such protects your fragile arguments.Hey, guess what? I didn't make the conditions of the claim. As usual you can't read what is posted and respond to that.

Arguing with you is like playing Calvin Ball with someone with ADD. You don't pay attention to the thread, the post, or even statements within a post, you just look for something to make an argument out of and then you decide exactly how you're going to define things regardless of context.

I could waste the time getting numbers that would be harder for you to refute, but what would be the point? You don't actually like data, or facts, or even staying within the context of the thread - you, as usual, just want to be right and screw off to anyone who can show you where you're actually not.

1. Apple will take it for granted that they have the best product, after all, they said they do, it must be the case. Their "innovation" will lag even farther behind the rest of the market and their prices will stagnate in an ever more competitive marketplace.
Can you explain how this is going to happen? I am not absolutely saying it won't happen, but I'm saying that you are assuming something with no facts, no reasons, no rationale.

2. Competing products will finally get "good enough". In the same way that Win 95 heralded the doom of the Mac,
The two events are not parallel. Apple's behaviour is different these days. There are so many reasons why the two cases are not related:

- Computers need software written by developers; MP3 players are loaded with music - software that thousands of artists have written and will continue to write, irrespective of what they'll be played on

- Pricing issues are different and people will pay more for a nicer product (to a point)

- Apple has taken the lead in several areas in this market in terms of interface, form factor, price, branding, desirability etc.

- Apple has taken the beautiful design philosophy of Bang & Olufsen (for example) and merged it with a Sony-like price tag

- Legacy has hampered the Mac in the past but isn't a big factor in MP3 players (see the first point)

- MP3 players are pinhead-proof: you can't use the 'it's not compatible' excuse, or the 'it's just a games machine' excuse (nowadays it's the 'it doesn't run my favourite game' excuse), or the 'no command line' excuse, or the 'it's not a serious machine' excuse

And so on.