Will The iPhone Kill The iPod?

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With more and more people using their phones to listen to music, is it possible that the iPhone could kill the iPod? I certainly wouldn’t carry both if I didn’t have to, would you?

What's really interesting about this new research is that 31 per cent of those who use both a music phone and a digital music player in the US selected their music phone as their primary music device, while 11 per cent use both equally. Almost a third of January phone sales in the US were music phones, so we can expect more and more people will listen to music primarily on their phones.
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I don't think it will kill it. Maybe reduce sales a little.
For example, I don't want to use my phone to listen to music at the gym.
.
 
Thats crazy!


They are talking like the iPhone is going to sell very well! :eek:


I dont know about anyone else, but if I would want something like the iPhone I would not get it because it is a phone or MP3 player. The only use it would be is as a PDA (which removes the entire reason to buy because you need to pay a monthly fee to start and can't just buy it). Way too little room for songs, and I sure as heck wouldn't use it as a phone! If I want a cell phone I will get a cheap one with the contract, a cell phone should be a cell phone and a cell phone only, and the iPhone is not something I would call a cell phone.
 
Don't know about the iPhone but I recently replaced my Nano 4 GB with a Sony Ericsson W950i. Music-wise it does everything the iPod can do and has the same amount of storage space so I see no reason to use my Nano any more. The phone is not even that much bigger than the Nano.
 
I'd love to get one, if I knew I could put it in my pocket without the screen looking like Wolverine attacked it. In the end I think it's too delicate for me to use with my gorilla tendencies, just like the iPod.
 
I think the iPhone is going to kill itself. The phone is too expensive to justify it over the cheaper price of an ipod.
 
it would kill it if it was cheaper and everyone used a GSM based cell phone service.
 
Ockie said:
I think the iPhone is going to kill itself. The phone is too expensive to justify it over the cheaper price of an ipod.
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Plus it doesn't have some of the more modern features that wireless phone enthusiasts want, like 3G. The only reason I would get one is for the scrollable voicemail, but having to resave all of my messages in succession isn't worth the iPhone's price tag.

And a lot of people don't want a phone that can play music. Usually you sacrifice the quality of a standalone product when a multifunction product comes out that includes that feature. Apple isn't really an exception either. I doubt the iPhone will significantly affect iPod sales.

As far as we know, Apple fans will probably buy both anyway. I mean, if they'll buy an Apple TV, anything is possible.
 
Where's my 80Gb iPhone? No? Its not disk based? I can get 5 minutes of talk time! Woot!
Sorry, but until capacity goes up, they start packing dual replaceable batteries, then music on the phone is a novelty at best. When playing music cuts down on the primary function of the phone, then people will go back to dedicated MP3 players.
 
People will buy the iPhone only if they want all of the features that it includes. There is no reason to buy one if you aren't going to use the PDA like stuff, or if you only want to use it as a regular phone.

People would probably rather carry one device that does it all than 2-3 separate ones.

I don't carry my nano around much because I already have enough stuff in my pockets (wallet, 2 sets of keys (mine/work), phone, misc change). I used to have a PDA but the screen busted and my current phone has a calendar w/alarms so it works well enough.

Its expensive for my needs, but I don't use my phone much besides reminders and talking. But I'm sure there are some people [H] enough to buy it despite the cost.
 
Nope, 4-8GB vs 30-80GB, there is still a need for mass mp3/video storage. They'll need to get the iphone's capacity up for it to kill mainstream mp3 players.
 
Let's see...

The 4GB iPhone costs double that of a 40GB iPod and requires a 2 year contract for a service that is likely $100+ a month. Yeah, that will kill the iPod.

Like the Mac Mini, which was supposed to take a big bite out of Windows Sales
The iTV which is supposed to kill Cable TV in favor of a-la-cart downloadable content from iTunes...

It's more hype than substance. Even as a smart phone it uses a slower data network than most would want. IMHO only people with more money than sense and diehard apple fans are going to jump at this.
 
I am not sure if I am going to get one, but here is an example of why I would get one, and why it would not replace my ipod.

Right now, I am carrying an ipod, a blackberry, and a cellphone.

If exchange push works on the iphone I could potentially carry one device.

The reason I would still keep my ipod?

The car, I primarily use the ipod for audiobooks during my 1 hr commute (each way). It is hooked up in the glove box and is controlled via my head unit. I am not sure it would work with the iphone, but I am sure that I don't want to keep fucking with the glovebox while driving to check if the last email that came in was important.
 
The iPhone is not as good an iPod as the iPod is.. so no.

It's very hard to make a music phone that's as good at being a music player as a device that's just made to be one.

Until the iPhone has as much storage space as my 30GB iPod, I'm not going to stop using the iPod.

I wouldn't wanna have my phone on me to listen to music at the gym or while jogging, it would be a lot more fragile and impractical than an iPod.
 
Holy crap your sig.



I see the iPhone as more trendy than practical, at least for the price. And you know soon enough other companeis will have competitive devices out, so I see no reason to buy an iPhone (if you even want to) until there's more to choose from.
 
people will buy the iPhone only if they've lost there marbles. Are happen to have an Apple icon tattooed on their butt.
 
mcravenufo said:
I don't think it will kill it. Maybe reduce sales a little.
For example, I don't want to use my phone to listen to music at the gym.
.
Click to expand...
Exactly. I'll be buying the iPhone, but my nano ipod will still be used for working out and cycling. So it will cannibalize sales to some extent, but I don't seem Mom and Dad forking out $600 for little Johnny to have an iPhone with service plan when they can get the little turd-monkey a ipod for $300.
 
comparing the price of an iPhone to an HD based iPod is a poor comparison. You have to compare it to the Nanos. Flash always costs more/GB.

My guess is that for most people, 8GB of music is more than enough. It's not enough for me, but that has more to do with me wanting to carry virtually every CD I have with me. the reality is that it'd probably take me a year or more to go through the 20GBs that are on my Karma.

I think talk about audio quality is almost irrelevant and battery life is only slightly more important. Let's keep in mind that 3 or 4 years ago the iPod had demonstrably inferior SQ compared to iRiver and Rio (not sure about Creative) DAPs and had battery life that was something like 1/2 of a Rio Karma. The iPod was by far the best selling DAP, despite these shortcomings.

I believe an 8GB nano is around $200.00. A new top end smart phone will generally run you 200-400 after rebates.

Clearly the iPhone is coming in at the top end of this (even if you deduct the price of a Nano), but given the large screen and iPod interface/name along with the cool factor, I think it will do decently (so long as people are willing to switch to Cingular).

That said, Apple is only expecting to capture 20 or 25% of the high end market, which is maybe 1-2% of the handset market. I seriously doubt that's going to put a major dent in iPod sales.

Down the road, it is inevitable that sales DAPs will die off. the fact that you're listening to MP3, AAC or WMA already means you're willing to sacrifice quality for convenience.

That said, I have to agree with whoever mentioned data....the lack of 3G is a major turnoff, though, as understand it, AT&T has an exceptionally weak 3g coverage, so maybe it doesn't matter. Personally, I think as prices fall it will take off. Of course if Samsung, Nokia and Sanyo manage to make a good player (must have gapless for me to care), then that will put even more pressure on the standalone players.
 
I am not going to judge the potential success of the iPhone. However, what is the iPhone really? To me it looks like a blank canvas device. Really, look at it. There's no physical keyboard just a touch screen. Basically, it could be anything, a PDA, a phone, a music player, a portable clock, whatever... The sad part is, it doesn't do any of these things in a satisfactory manner. Phonewise, it has (up to) 5 hours of talk time. We all know that it will be less, because all specs are in ideal conditions, i.e.: signal strength, LCD backlight, etc... As a music player, how can you use it without impacting on the battery life so you can effectively use it as a phone? It's also more bulky than the nano or other MP3 devices. I would never use this at the gym where I would have to be very careful not to smash the screen with a dumbbell... Is it a PDA? Not really, then maybe it is. We don't fully know what can be done on it yet but from what little information we have there's no way it's a fully functional PDA and don't forget the iPhone is not an open platform device (thanks to mr. jobs powertrip).

It's a nice device, it looks cool, looks futuristic but impractical. That screen is gonna get scratched so bad, probably more than Jenna Haze's back in a week of rumbling. That's bad. I love my nano because it does what's it's supposed to do well.
 
I don't own an iPod or any portable MP3 player. I'm actually considering one, of course I need to know how much the service fees will be first. There's a good chance that depending on a few things I may decide to buy a Nokia and wait until Rev. 2 to re-evaluate.

There are a couple of reasons for this:

1) I HATE voice menus. The way that voicemails are displayed and you can select a voicemail by the caller's name or number is kickass. If I never have to hear: "Please press 1 for english, and..." again it will be too soon.

2) It should support USB mass storage just like every just about every MP3 player out there (except Zune). I currently carry a USB flash drive on my keychain, and I'd love to have a much higher amount of storage to carry around.

3) Syncing the thing to my computers should be as simple as doing it with my SE T610 and my wife's Nokia 6600. I won't use phone vendor supplied software, it generally sucks ass. I currently use OSX's built in iSync.

4) I'm actually pretty impressed with the crap they've managed to get into it. If they use an iPod dock or something that's licensed out, then I could attach it to a TV set and display slideshows, videos, etc from it instead of having to carry my laptop (like I do now). It's worth noting that the current iPods also do this.

5) I'm hoping it can support an external GPS and mapping software, currently using a laptop. It'd be damned cool to be able to look up pizza and have directions to get there while walking down the street. My wife's Nokia could do this, but depending on what I end up buying (phone) it's not worth getting the Nokia GPS stuff.

6) Smaller and smaller conventional cell phones = smaller and smaller keys that are only easily usable by children and people who have small hands (Japanese, etc). I cannot imagine my uncle being able to push the buttons on my SE T610 because his hands are so much larger than mine.

7) I know where all of the apps on my SE and my wife's Nokia are but they're generally annoying to get to. It's enough of a PITA that I don't end up using things like the calculator , etc because the UI's suck. The iPhone doesn't appear to suck in this way from the videos.

This will seriously make me not want one.

-1) I'd prefer a bigger phone than a smaller amount of storage. Hopefully they'll release a hard drive based model. I am a guy and my pockets are large enough.

-2) I can get a Nokia cheaper and maybe find a foldable QWERTY bluetooth keyboard that will work with it.

-3) There may be no GPS mapping solution available.

-4) No third party docks, bluetooth keyboards, other hardware, etc....

-5) Seriously limited software. I don't prefer to buy software off of iTunes, but I will if it's there. Seriously limited software means the phone is worth less to me.
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If I end up getting the Nokia, I might buy an iPod... It'd be nice to have a portable XP/Linux install on there for maintenance purposes. But then again, I may not....
 
I'd as soon punch myself in the face as use my 'music' phone to listen to music. I consider music phones as relevant as music toasters, and am about as likely to try to plug headphones into one. They have mediocre sound, horrible interfaces, awkward (and/or expensive) methods to get the music in the phone, drain the batteries in no time flat, and are generally bulky. I've got a nano, which is easy to shovel my MP3s onto and easy to use, with good battery life and decent sound quality.

If, somewhere down the road, cellphones are as small as a nano, don't involve Verizon trying to rape my wallet to buy their music, have sufficient battery life to last through the day while playing music, and don't cost their weight in gold like the iPhone, we'll talk.
 
the iphone is appealing but i wouldnt get it. i... shall... not let apple eat my money
 
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