I doubt cell phones will be a threat to iPod sales anytime soon. I view any trip south by AAPL on a story like this as a buying opportunity. This kind of story might make good copy for publication sales and a day's media coverage, but cell phones are cell phones and iPods are simply better at music.

Cell phones have been playing games for years, and yet Nintendo's Gameboy owns the midrange game market with thousands of titles and Sony looks to be creating a nice little hardcore premium niche for itself with the PSP, and the development of games on cell phones or lack thereof has no bearing on their hardware. I'm sure people make money on games for cell phones, but no real gamer spends time with them, just as nobody who really cares about music is going to spend time navigating a significant library of titles on the tiny keypad of their cellphone.

The reason is because no matter what, there is always demand for a device that is purely devoted to a single set of tasks rather than doing everything. The iPod is simply better at doing music than anything else, at least that I've used. At worst there might be a dip as some people using motorola phones use the iTMS and iTunes on their phone, but there is some profit, at least in the licensing of the iTunes software, for apple there anyway.

Plus, out of the 750 million cellphones how many will even be used for music? I assume it will be an extra charge just for the service, just like all the other fancy things on my phone I never bother to use.

I just think relating this to Apple's stock value is kind of absurd.

Cell phones have a horrible interface for doing much of anything besides talking to somebody. The iPod is so far superior as a music device. When will these industry goons wake up and realize that it's better to have separate devices dedicated to their own tasks??? I'm getting so sick of "convergence" getting in the way of creating good products. The iPod should stay the iPod and that's what I want, not a cell phone masquerading as a music player!

"While optimists think Apple could sell 45 million iPods next year, mobile-phone makers will be selling more than 750 million handsets"

And of course this means that every single one of those handsets will be able to play MP3's, right? Not even. They have been claiming for years that the availability of simple camera phones was going to decimate the sales of digital cameras. In fact, I belive this same company stated that by 2005 the sale of camera phones would bring the digital camera industry to its collective knees.

People really need to take a close look at the kind of garbage these guys spew forth just to see what kind of control they have over the stock market. Many of these same analysts have stock interests in the companies they talk about. They get the stock to go down a little so they can buy cheap, then when people realize the doom and gloom was off-target, they make a pretty penny on that same stock going back up in value.

This is just sad.

". . . the report said it will be some time before state-of-the-art, third-generation wireless networks are in place in the U.S. that offer more reliable and faster downloads of music files."

Maybe in couple of years the service will be SO fast AND relible (lol) that you could have 'music-on-demand' for a fee as part of your phone package. 1,000,000 songs to LISTEN to as opposed to download (i.e thru WAP or some sort of GPRS service?) Maybe?

"While optimists think Apple could sell 45 million iPods next year, mobile-phone makers will be selling more than 750 million handsets"

Heh! How many iPod makers? 1: HP. How many phone makers? Much more... General Quality of the iPod: good to excellent, with a few so so's. The general portable phone quality: bad to ok with a faw goods. The ipod is a good quality dedicated device, whilst the phones are containing more and more (often poorly deseigned) perks to distract from the main goal: a mobile telephone. Example: my phone works great as a digital camera and game console, but when it comes to phoning, well, not great. The fact is that cell phone makers have to improve their products to be equal to devices like digital cameras or iPods before thinking of seriously competing with them.

Everything I've read about this story (I haven't read the story directly) leaves out the whole premise of Apple designing cell phone software (iTunes on a Moto exists if you read some articles on the web) or the cell phone itself. I imagine the iPod will take a market slip to music/cell phones. But why the premise that Apple will pack up it's musics bag and not compete or make a superior product to the music cell phone?

iPod killer, iPod killer, iPod killer…Not!

Apple is DOOMED! This could be the thing to dethrone the iPod;-)

[clenched teeth] will you please ... well... let's just say this comment exasperates me [/clenched teeth] [ back to normal mental state] I just don't think that cheap mobile phones and their progs. will be able to " dethrone" the iPod that quickly without making big quality improvements [/]

What industry?
If he is from the cell phone industry, of course he thinks cell phones will supplant mp3 players (and why just mention the iPod? Why not say it will kill mp3 players in general?). It is a self-serving quote and should be taken with a huge grain of salt (actually a whole ocean's worth).

Personally, I use my cell phone to talk to people (not take pictures, not listen to music) and my iPod to listen to music (not talk to people). Right tool for the right job. Last thing I need or want is a "jack of all trades, master of none" approach.

But that's just me...

If my usage is any indication:

When traveling, I listen to my iPod in flight. My cell
phone, in contrast, is turned off.

When I arrive, I set up my iPod with my travel speakers
in my hotel room, where it stays put, providing me with
excellent music while I move around the room performing
other tasks - including calling people on my cell phone!

And while I don't currently use my iPod in my car, it's
the same deal - I want the iPod playing music while I
drive - without headphones on - and without distractions.
And if I should need to answer a call on the road, I can
do that - and hang up when I'm done.

It simply works better for what I want it to do - play
music!

Let us be honest with ourselves. Even if you love the iPod, it will not have the same type of success once cell phones contain the same functionalities as an iPod. Apple needs to either partner with multiple cell phone companies or add wifi to its product offering or it will most likely make the same strategical mistakes they made during the early years of commercial computing. Just being honest here...

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Anonymous wrote:
Let us be honest with ourselves. Even if you love the iPod, it will not have the same type of success once cell phones contain the same functionalities as an iPod. Apple needs to either partner with multiple cell phone companies or add wifi to its product offering or it will most likely make the same strategical mistakes they made during the early years of commercial computing. Just being honest here...

Seems to me if i'm playing music on my cell phone all day long, i run the risk of draining my battery and not having my phone available for emergencies, etc. Right? (I don't use a cell phone, so am unsure what kind of battery life they have these days.)

Just seems to me its more practical to have a phone which i use primarily as a phone and little else. Sure, i'd like to have a camera in it too, and maybe a calendar and addressbook, cause you never know when that might come in handy, but i think i'd want a real camera for when i'm serious about taking pictures, so there's no way i'd use my phone for serious photography. And even if cell phone cameras were really, really good (which i strongly suspect they're not), i'd still want to have a separate camera for the aforementioned battery issue, if for nothing else.

But YMMV.

If more cellphone manufacturers and providers support the itms, Apple will further dominate the platform. Sure, initially iPod sales might be canabilized, but with more people using AAC and fairplay, there will be a larger market for iPods.

Consider the ability to sate impulse purchases with an always on connection that people carry everywhere! itms sales will skyrocket and iPod sales, while not being a monopoly, will also rise.

Once again, Jobs and Apple are ahead of the curve with long-term visions.

Yes, "Let us be honest to ourselves": mobile phones are generaly of inferior quality and are not able to execute 2 tasks at the same time, contrarily to the iPod. I'm not saying that all mp3 players are of "Bonne Facture" , but "Let us be honest to ourselves". I'm not satisfied with the current mobile phones.

When I was looking for a new cell phone last year, I wanted mp3 capabilities, but was quite surprise that nobody built one yet. I had my 256 mp3 player for over 3 years now and I plan to buy mp3/cell phone when it comes out. I don’t want to deal with having 2 bulky gadgets in my pocket. I would be even happy if it had at least 2 meg camera for taking quick reference. Like it or not cell and its growing capabilities is taking a bite at a lot of industries. Palm is loosing market. People are using cell for time rather than watches. Games are another issue that is hard to crack. Gaming is about quality of games and look of games…something a cell phone game is far from achieving. Plus the control sucks. I think Ipod market is definitely going to get smaller through the coming years as cell and mp3 player becomes more common.

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Anonymous wrote:
I think Ipod market is definitely going to get smaller through the coming years as cell and mp3 player becomes more common.

Quote

Guest wrote:
When I was looking for a new cell phone last year, I wanted mp3 capabilities, but was quite surprise that nobody built one yet. I had my 256 mp3 player for over 3 years now and I plan to buy mp3/cell phone when it comes out. I don’t want to deal with having 2 bulky gadgets in my pocket. I would be even happy if it had at least 2 meg camera for taking quick reference. Like it or not cell and its growing capabilities is taking a bite at a lot of industries. Palm is loosing market. People are using cell for time rather than watches. Games are another issue that is hard to crack. Gaming is about quality of games and look of games…something a cell phone game is far from achieving. Plus the control sucks. I think Ipod market is definitely going to get smaller through the coming years as cell and mp3 player becomes more common.

That is discounting the advance of larger flash memory like Samsung's new 4gb chip. Put a couple of those in a phone...low battery consumption, lots of songs.Who would want a clunky hard drive model?



Yes, flash players may be in trouble. But I just can't see any challenge to the larger iPods from cell phones. I haven't met anyone yet who was GOING to get a full sized iPod but decided to wait for a cell phone instead.[/quote]

Quote

Anonymous wrote:
That is discounting the advance of larger flash memory like Samsung's new 4gb chip. Put a couple of those in a phone...low battery consumption, lots of songs.Who would want a clunky hard drive model?

Quote

Rainy Day wrote:
i run the risk of draining my battery and not having my phone available for emergencies, etc. Right?

Why do these analysts expect the cellphones to gain storage capability and increased data throughput, and at the same time, expect the iPod to remain the same? It seems like brain-lock.

The iPod by 2007 will have been transformed to include wireless capability, and many more uses besides music playing.

My cell phone (Nokia 6610) can't even manage to work decently as a cell phone.
1. I can't hear the regular handset and I have to either use the headphones or speakerphone.
2. The battery life is pityful. As it is, I have to recharge it nearly every night, just to kep it going.
3. The interface is so clunky that I have trouble with it for PHONE_RELATED_operations … iTunes interface, somebody ?
4. It includes a radio functionality I have used maybe 3 or 4 times in the early stages of ownership, but the sound quality (problem 1) and the battery life (problem 2) quickly discouraged me from going any further …
I don't have a camera on it, and I sure don't miss it … that may come with my next cell-phone, as it is becoming ubiquitous, but I'm not going to be using it very much either …
My iPod photo, on the other hand, gives me very good sound, battery life, and allows me to empty my Rebel's card when it's full …

Dedicated portable music players survive many predictions of doom.

Walkmans, CD players, now iPods .

We're still wearing watches, listening to radio, watching TV, watching movies at home, ... using dedicated devices.

Btw, I don't have a cellular phone but have 2 iPods.

They already make you check your cell phone at the door of several places if it has a camera on it. Lots of workplaces and such are already concerned about iPods (and keychain USB drives, and more) and security, so they ban the devices from the workplace. By combining the two devices together, you get even more chances you won't have either on you when you want to use them.