Pods (even iPods) will last
Woz, or Steve Wozniak, the cofounder of Apple, is a smart guy. That´s why I think the quick gossip-like headlines all over the internet the last days (“Apple co-founder believes iPod has about run its course”) is very simplified.
It depends on how you define “iPod”. The iPod Touch is also an iPod, and I can very well see a future iPod Touch with WiFi and perhaps Wimax capabilities, which is not a phone (thus not the moniker “iPhone”), but could be the prefered communication (and media) device from Apple. People are switching to VOIP at home so why wouldn’t they want to get away from the cellular network provider’s long reigning hands when on the go as well ?
“Even” major Norwegian newspaper VG eats this article raw and reruns it on their website. If the downfall of the iPod has already started why would this even be a good headline ? Because the premise is vague and the headline surprising. It´s not surprising that pure mp3 music players are dead (unless in an even more miniature form perhaps), but an iPod is so much more today. There´s a huge difference between the firste gen iPods and what we have today. So in that sense the iPod died out years ago.
All products have a limited lifespan, if not technology allows them to converge with another product, and brand and marketing makes the transition seamless. I have never owned an iPod, but years ago I had a PDA. I always felt uneasy about carrying both it and my mobile phone. But is the PDA dead ? My iPhone does exactly the same only better (partly because the PDA ran Windows CE), besides being a good web browser (browser tablets anyone?), a phone, and a music player.
As much as I think Sony-Ericsson is on the wrong track with their mobile phones, I think they eventually will get their 7 megapixels slapped-on Carl Zeiss lenses right. When the image sensor technology is good enough to make noiseless small sensors (which probably also record HD video without problems) those lenses will come to use. Even though I am above average interested in photography and prefer a dedicated digital SLR camera (today..), it will most probably make most sense to people in the future that their iPod, as well as being a communications device, also takes pretty damn good pictures and video. When it also has those capabilities, will it be dead again ?
