The iPod is dying, and the iPhone's rubbish

I hate my iPod, mainly because I loathe iTunes. Currently, I'm using a Zune, though it has it's problems too. The ZUne software works much better than iTunes, and I despise Apple's DRM.

Many of my friends HATE their iPhone, though they still love to show off the features that work and are really cool. As with everything else, cool is the rule, and there are some really cool things with the 3G iPhone...when it works.

I'll stick to my HTC Win Mobile 6.1 phone for now though, and until I find a better music player, my Zune is working. I don't hate change...I just hate things that don't work.

I met Steve Wozniak in a Byte Shop in Mountainview CA in the mid seventies when he walked into the store to deliver the first motherboards to the SLACC group. He was apologetic about being a week late. This was before Apple and I guess those motherboards eventually became the original Apple computers.

In those days there were one or two home computers on the market. I had a Digital Group out of Denver that showed up as a kit. There were no keyboards for personal computers because there no personal computers. Monitors were 12" TV sets and it would be several years before floppy drives showed up. It wasn't until 1985 that the IBM PC appeared with its dual floppy drives.

Steve Wozniak is a genius and was responsible for much of the innovation that brought fun computing to millions of people. Certainly personal music devices have changed the way people include music in their lives. In truth the I=Phone is a wonderful phone with a really bad expensive calling plan. I feel strong enough about unlocked GSM that I own a clone I-Phone which costs me 1/3 for what an I-Phone would cost me. I have better things to do with my money than give it to a failing carrier.

If I'm dropping hundreds of bucks on a device, I want it unlocked so I can re-chip it when I travel. It's the main reason I haven't bought one. AT&T suck, and the $40 per month data plan is simply too high.

You tell 'em Woz.

Meh, as long as you have MacHeads the iWorld will control all. After all, what will replace the iPod......the Zune? HA!!!

I adore my iPod, but it's six generations outdated after purchasing it only a year ago. If consumers keep expecting the product to constantly change, they will be wary about purchasing anything. Apple is making their own products obsolete this way.

Yeah I think ipods are dying out...and what's taking their [place is the new microsoft Zune. I got a 120 Gig Zune that has pictures music radio video, and you can buy music and video straight off ur device as long as there is a wi-fi connection around...it's way coooler....

times change, technology steps up to keep up.... they may change and lose some footing, but they will not disappear, just as walkman and disc player devices are still present in lower SES areas.

Who the heck cares what happens, there will always be compatibility regardless of technology in our lifetime so stop taking everything so literal seriously.

I'm holding out til January before signing for an iphone. Am hoping for tarif cuts!

"He says investment houses' over-valuation of web 2.0 and social networking websites could even lead to a minor version of the dotcom crash which saw $5 trillion wiped of the market values of technology companies between March 2000 and October 2002."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/mediatechnologyandtelecoms/31456...

Goodbye, Current. It was nice knowing you. :)

No, that's because of bias I'd say.

These electronics aren't the same old cd players, they keep getting better so they keep their name alive. The iPhone hasn't been around long enough to even have had it's days...

My solution to this is to just jail break the iphone and ipod to install what you like.

The Wizard of Woz has spoken.

Actually I live in Tokyo and can promise you that the only way you get the functions listed at $100-200 is with a 2 year contract. Although my current Sanyo phone has all kinds of functionality; video chat, TV, 2 cameras, touch writing, pc document readers, sophisticated web browsing, multi-lingual dictionaries, a music player etc., nothing comes close to the usability and sheer beauty of the iPhone... not to mention the fact that it would sync seamlessly with my computer.

If anything, it seems that Apple has learned something from the Japanese business model. They take existing technologies, improve on them and repackage them in a user friendly and elegant way. I have yet to see anything here as powerful or with the intuitive interface that the accelerometer brings into play. Some of the new games are amazing. And finding things on an iPhone couldn't be easier.

Unfortunately with their biggest market, the US still on a decrepit network, a lot of the incredible functionality and apps Apple could develop, simply won't work at home.

As for the "technology for dummies" argument, just answer me this, are you still running Vista or did you switch back to XP like everyone else?

Microsoft making a FAIL of an operating system that requires major hardware upgrades across the board seems to me a bigger problem than Apple working out the kinks with a new product after debuting in a totally new market segment. Admittedly, things didn't go as smoothly as they could've with their first iteration, but the current product is spot on and the future is brighter than ever!

Current needs an iPhone app! I love my iPhone.

Apple means well, but I have been turned off by their frequent releases. Instead of the overpriced updates of the same limited product every 3 months, push the technology. Steve Jobs isn't as innovative as he and his company projects themselves either. Phones in Japan with camera, internet, TV, software and mp3 are as cheap as $100. It only damns Apple further with their greedy, single contract deals. Couple that with their clunky software and copycat developers. All packaged around such limits in what the average techie seeks, they really are not in my interests at all. I've always seen them as a sort of technology for dummies.

This headline is absolute cack.

It totally misrepresents what Wozniak, who is an Apple employee, said. The fact that people on the inside are aware of the challenges their products face in the future is a good thing for we, the public who for almost a decade have waited with baited breath for each of Apple's new innovations.

Woz is right
Apple is like nintendo
They've yet to learn the power of 3rd party developers
They'll find a way to fubar this

My ipod kicks ass! It was the first nano. I jumped into a lake with my ipod and the next day it still worked like a charm, then about two months after that it went through the wash for about half an hour before I realized where it was. After that it did this flashing thing for about two hours until I took off the back panel and dried both the panel and the circut board. Then the next day the only problems were that the time was wrong and it was showing water where the screen was. Two days later everthing was in tip top shape. It also has a rather large dent in the back from when I dropped it on a rock.

My ipod is invincible, but unfortunately I've lost it and can't find it right now. Right now I'm rockin' the old walkman but it skips like school girl.
Cheers

These things take a long time to develop and once they're made the company has to try to cash in. Meanwhile the technology goes out of date. He's not being very constructive or helping company moral by bad mouthing the products though.

I've got an Iphone and now I have a Nokia N96.

I really can't see the point in Iphone anymore. The N96 just blows it away and renders it pointless.

iphone and US cell phones in general are a joke. If you want real technology and innovation look to japan.

Maybe if Apple didn't release a new "generation" of iPod every 5-6 months it wouldn't be dying.

As far as I'm concerned, the iPod and iPhone aren't yet in the in their best days. The future will demand them even more than now.

Josh;)

Steve Wozniak may be the shit but Jobs understands how to run a profit producing company much better. I don't expect the macintosh portion of the personal computer market to decline anytime barring something awful happening to the company.

That said I completly agree with the man on every point other then the future of the company. The future of the ipod yes, the iphone will either change or die though. I think they'll make the right choice there or some other company will jump the gun.

The Woz was Apple's good half, the kind that embodied the innovation and nonconformity of the company.
Then, Jobs took over. He was the one who started the incompatibility and price gouging, favoring fashion over function.

Not to sound like the jilted Mac fanboy, but the popularity of the iPod has really hurt Apple as a whole. It used to feel like a core part of Apple was seeing what devices could do (anyone remember the Newton?) but that has been sacrificed for a successful marketing strategy. They are not making any new advances to their technology in order to hold on to the popular appeal of their devices, and this is really going to handicap them.

I'll be buried with my ipod!

I can not live without my iPod. However, I've been using the same one for two years and when it dies, I don't plan on buying another Ipod.

I don't like Apple products.

I just want radical technology.
Ipods are old and stale.

Give me HOLOGRAPHIC displays and a visceral tangible interface

I'm sure he wishes Ipods and Iphones would die, but lets be real. Apples products are on top of their game and all other products are either trying to be it, or beat it. No one wants to be defeated. Apple products are funky, strong so don't fight. It doesn't matter, whose wrong or right, so let them try to beat it, beat it, beat it.

That guy looks like Demetri Martin, only not as funny.

Things like the ipod don't just die out, they are killed by newer, better things.
I don't like ipods because of the software and format limitations, but I don't see them dying out anytime soon.

Mmm sounds like someone who isn't getting a piece of the pie, or well, a piece not as big as they feel they are entitled to....

Now, wtf is Steve Jobs wearing? Jeans, tucked in shirt, some kind of webbed lather braces, and a bow tie?!

Like Woz said its like a Walkman I remember when i was younger all the new advances (Dolby, then auto-reverse, then chromium tape and then skip a song)if you had the newest you were cool. then Bam farkin CD's, then Mini disk, then mp3 now Ipod Next my toaster is a 16 track studio with 3 terabytes of memory

The ipod better not die!!!
I just sold my entire CD collection, almost 1,200 cds, to put it all on an ipod!!

Apple simply has a better interface than anyone else. They have smart usable intuitive design.

That's what makes them a winner. As long as they stick to that and the rest of the companys ignore usability (as they have forever) then apple will continue to grow and flourish.

Apple doesn't come up with the world's great ideas they just make them functional by humans.

That said, let's not pretend that they are a bunch of nice people. Look who they get in bed with!

If another company can do what they are doing then and only then will apple have issues.

But yes, the ipod will fade, of course it will, but something else will replace it.

a clear case of market saturation. no matter how good your product is, people only want so much.

iPods can burn in hell, i hate watching people plugging in an ipod and going brain dead for a few hours, read a fucking book

My new 3G is pretty fracking awesome, but Apple is gaining a reputation, like Microsoft, of locking down its products. Steve Jobs once said that people dont know what they want until you show them, well some times Steve, people do know what they want and it would be in your best interest to give it to them!

i kinda agree with the woz in a way, nothing lasts forever. it wouldn't completely die out, it will just evolve.

I got my hands on my bosses Iphone today and have to say not impressed in the slightest. Been a Blackberry user for work myself over the past 4 years and they are at the forefront of office email on the move.

As for the IPhone it seems like they rushed their idea of push email. I put to you, no function to search mail, no function to collapse all folders within your inbox and no function to save email on both the device and pc/server at the same time (delete on device, within a few minutes deleted on your client... ouch!!!)

But they will obviously iron out these within the next few software release..... we hope.

IPod to me is at the top of its game, wonderful device and cant be without mine no matter where I may go.

There's no way the iPod and iPhone are dying out, well they better not be, I'm finally getting my iPhone in a few days...