Mobile Phone - Convergence Point For iPod, Others? 301
Nagen writes "DrunkenBlog has an intriguing essay arguing that the mobile phone is the primary convergence point for digital devices and will soon cause iPod sales to evaporate. Perhaps more interesting is the idea that the iPod is an expendable pawn in a larger battle of who will control the gateway of all legal content to the user."
iPod haters (Score:3, Interesting)
Well, here we go again... (Score:1, Interesting)
Seriously, does EVERYONE have to predict the death of the iPod?
two words: battery capacity (Score:5, Interesting)
It's true for me (Score:4, Interesting)
Differences between US, EU, Asia (Score:4, Interesting)
Apple/Motorola Deal (Score:3, Interesting)
As soon as phones start getting 1GB drives in 'em, I'll be carrying my iPod with me a lot less often. (And I'll get a lot angrier when I drop my phone, too!)
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&u=
All roads will roam. (Score:3, Interesting)
A phone is just a phone (Score:3, Interesting)
Them: Whats that?!
me: and Ipod
them: oh, one of those music thingies?
me: yea
I just don't see this type of person wanting to talk to Autie Jolie while listening to Disturbed at the same time. I think someone had it right when they explained that most people with cool phones got them at a discount or for free with their phone plan. I definately don't see IPod sales drying up anytime soon. I NEED my cell phone to be a cell phone. I don't want to stop my playlist so I can pick up a call!
Business Cycle (Score:3, Interesting)
All these are caused by the pressure to stay competitive, and more often than not, the pressure is from consumers (indirectly). If you are deciding on two phones, one with a camera and another without, all at the same price same other specs, you have to choose the one with a camera simply because it has more features.
I for one am totally against attaching non-related feature to a device, so until now I am still using my 4-year-old phone.
As consumers we really need to boycoutt these products to make them go away.
Ohh.. If one manufacturer removes one feature from a mobile phone and still manages to maintain sales, guess what? The reverse cycle might just begin and every manufacture will start stripping features to cut cost and stay competitive.
DRM 2 restrictive on phones - hogwash (Score:1, Interesting)
Ipod is expensive hardware + noprofit sevice + copy all your own stiuff 2 it.
The one DRM even common fools will notice is when they pay to listen to every track on their phone, it'll be like having a coin-fed jukebox in your pocket.
The RIAA would love to be able to moniter your music listening via the network they will never let this happen unless it is pay per listen - as will the telecos - they drive device sales.
So - this will never happen the whole article is il; thought out (intruiging) hogwash.
Funny? Try plagarized... (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:One thing I promise you... (Score:2, Interesting)
Over here in the UK, phone companies aren't regarded as bastions of decency, but they aren't mistrusted like they are over in the USA, and you can switch to other phone companies as long as you actually bought your phone and weren't provided with it free for signing up with a minimum-term contract (which is essentially a rental phone, and they give you free upgrades to the latest model etc).
I think it's a very pertinent question, as the USA seems to be trailing other countries like the UK when it comes to mobile phone coverage, usage, and general technological trends, so if mobile phones supplant iPod usage over here, you'll probably see it over there in a year or two.
Real iPod Killer (Score:3, Interesting)
In fact, since I've started thinking about music like this, I've pretty much taken all of the fun out of listening on my ipod. It seems boring to be stuck with the same music I have at home and not have access to new music suggestions. On my site [musicmobs.com] we've had a lot of success with helping people find new music. Once you start going down that track it's hard to stick to just your home grown library.
Re:Yes, but (Score:3, Interesting)
mobile phones? nope: IP addresses R Us. (Score:3, Interesting)
2) wi-fi uber alles.
3) the phone companies are not going to have a product pretty soon: I'll ask google to connect me to "my friend fred in muscogie" Then it will ask, would you like to send him email, leave a voice message, IM him, or talk to him right now?
4) THE device is the computer: everything else is a peripheral, including screen, keyboard, microphone, speakers, printer, projector, camera, video camera. What you carry around is a hard drive. Well, actually, a 30 gig memory card. You'll probably want to start with that small one.
Re:Differences between US, EU, Asia (Score:2, Interesting)
Which reminds me that in parts of Asia, the mobile phone market is somewhat saturated and there is very little room for growth. Then what is the point of convergence? If phones overtook iPods as MP3 player of choice, it wouldn't have made the phone companies too much more money because of the limited growth of the market but it would have killed Apple's device, which did make money. I think an earlier poster's comparison between the mobile phone and a black hole is very valid. (This [slashdot.org] may also be relevant.)
Re:two words: battery capacity (Score:2, Interesting)
I don't buy it (Score:3, Interesting)
This convergence trend is starting to rear its ugly head again. Shitty phones, combined with shitty cameras, combined with shitty messaging devices. Bleh. No doubt, modern cell phones are little computers that can adapt with software. Yet, with convergence you force tools to restrict themselves to form-factor, interactive, and I/O constraints that they normally wouldn't have.
Re:This is stupid (Score:2, Interesting)
So if you lose your place on the treadmill do you have to start over from the beginning?
I had a cell phone for years, my bosses used to love abusing it, calling to find out where this or that was rather than just getting off their fat asses and looking for it themselves.
You know it doesn't answer if you don't hit the green button, right? You're responsible for whether or not someone gets ahold of you on your mobile phone.
I'm obviously biased but I hate the cell phone lifestyle. It's fake, lazy and pointless.
It's a lifestyle now? Are we going to have shows like Cellular Ear for the Landline Guy? And here I thought it was just a device for talking to other people.
Like so many fads before, these little gadgets have turned the zombified idiots of our culture into the lemmings we all knew they could be.
Yeah, it's a fad. I'm sure people will wise up and say "Damn I hate being able to talk to whomever I want when I want" in a few months and we can put all this silliness behind us. Mobile phones are the next pet rock!
I don't need
Maybe if more people text messaged you wouldn't lose your focus on the treadmill...
Re:Differences between US, EU, Asia (Score:3, Interesting)
Could be Americans prefer the social aspect of speaking to the person they need to send the message too? Realize that they can get their communications done faster and more efficiently by forming words with their mouths than by typing into tiny keyboards, even with predictive text assistance? Or perhaps we're just not as prone to fads as adults, because certainly texting is popular among the younger crowd.
Re:iPod haters (Score:3, Interesting)
That makes no sense as a retort to what I wrote. I'll take a stab anyhow, though. I would assume most people who have enough competence to construct grammatically correct sentences online would understand the concept that in a consumerist world, not every product is intended to be marketed towards them, and when it quite clearly isn't ("HOLY SHIT BATTERY LIFE BLOWS APPLE SUCKS I CAN GET MORE FEATURES FROM PLAYER X PEOPLE JUST BUY IT CUZ IT LOOKS COOL"), they probably shouldn't try to rip apart a product that's not trying to be something that it, well, isn't. Looking forward is great. Being assinine about a product that's not designed for them isn't.
Combine more features and kiss that extra time goo-bye.
Common sense would tell us that if battery life would be an issue for the iPods market, not the whiney battery life dude, but the people the iPod is being marketed for, Apple would make sure that it would not be a major issue while using those "extra features" that don't exist yet. When it becomes a real issue for the real market, then you'll probably see it increased before it hits the market. And if it doesn't? It will slip.
Seek help.
Those who would try to discredit a very, very successful product for battery life that noone very obviously (see:sales) cares about makes me snicker. You want me to seek help? I'm sure I could seek up some help in the form of a link that displays the success of the iPod that you apparently believe should be a failure.
Seriously, you didn't expect the iPod to remain as _only_ a music playing device forever, did you?
Obviously no, but it hasn't yet, so I don't know why you're implying that it somehow has already changed from being just an effective mp3 player.
Phones aren't going to be a threat to it sales-wise until they get some form of comparable space. When do you see even ONE gig cell phones becoming mainstream and affordable?
You can have the cell phone with the 128 meg memory that does the barebones MP3 playback. It's no competition for the iPod and its capabilities, nor will it be until long after the iPod had its day.
Re:Differences between US, EU, Asia (Score:2, Interesting)
The biggest difference between the US and Europe as far as I can tell from the US is that our plans are so cheap everyone leaves their cell phone on all the time, and has no problem answering it even though caller pays. (as a benefit of this it is illegal to call a cell phone in the US for advertising!) In Europe calls to cell phones are apparently so expensive nobody uses their cell phone for voice calls, prefering to deal with a difficult interface to SMS. (granted SMS is expensive in the US, but considering how cheap a phone call is I don't think SMS would get much popularity here even if it was cheap)
From my cell phone I can call ANY other phone in the US for no extra charge. When I was last in Europe I got a cell phone to carry with me, and nobody was willing to call it because it was from out of the country. A state in the US is equivalent to a country in Europe as far as size. I honestly did not get people's unwillingness to call me on that phone, cause in the US nobody would think twice about it anymore. In fact most people I know are shocked when someone does worry about calling an out of state number cause nearly everyone can do it for free from their cell phone.
Re:It's also called a radio... (Score:3, Interesting)
Anti-cellphone (Score:2, Interesting)