i don't see anywhere in the blurb where the poster insinuates that an iPod killer will emerge. steve jobs mentioned that in order for the iPod to be dethroned, a company with as much clout as MS would have to get involved. you're probably just trolling, but i would invite you to describe what in the article encouraged you to start harshing on the editor. and not even funny-harsh, but bad-parent harsh.
having said that, i don't think anyone _actually_ expects a player to unseat the iPod, at least not anytime soon. but we love to see companies try and beat apple, because it means more interesting players emerge in the competition, even if that hasn't happened yet, and we only see wave after wave of hopeless, ugly players.
my prediction is that the iPod will fall, within a few years, but not because a more attractive player comes along (that's not possible). what's going to be responsible is the shifting of trendy consumer tastes. sometime relatively soon -- unless apple starts getting vigorous in updating the iPod's image -- people will start getting bored with them. they're already getting boring ... the image, the marketing, the white, the wheel. at some point, some broad consumer shift will take place, and iPods will no longer be cool, unless Apple stays ahead of the game and reinvents itself into a new kind of cool. but it has to reinvent ... iPods will not be stylish forever.
i would say that Creative -- from whom i would incidentally never buy any hardware -- understands this well, which is why they're pushing their own idea of the next wave of cool (stupid colors etc, which is not the next wave). they're spending boatloads in marketing just so that when people sour of apple (which, again, is absolutely inevitable given historical trends), they're the next ones in the public eye.
“An engineer explained to us that hundreds of ear impressions were gathered in the name of research, and while each one obviously boasted its own unique shape and size, one single characteristic remained uniform across the board: the entrance into the ear canal is not a perfect circle, it's an oval.”
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i don't see anywhere in the blurb where the poster insinuates that an iPod killer will emerge. steve jobs mentioned that in order for the iPod to be dethroned, a company with as much clout as MS would have to get involved. you're probably just trolling, but i would invite you to describe what in the article encouraged you to start harshing on the editor. and not even funny-harsh, but bad-parent harsh.
having said that, i don't think anyone _actually_ expects a player to unseat the iPod, at least not anytime soon. but we love to see companies try and beat apple, because it means more interesting players emerge in the competition, even if that hasn't happened yet, and we only see wave after wave of hopeless, ugly players.
my prediction is that the iPod will fall, within a few years, but not because a more attractive player comes along (that's not possible). what's going to be responsible is the shifting of trendy consumer tastes. sometime relatively soon -- unless apple starts getting vigorous in updating the iPod's image -- people will start getting bored with them. they're already getting boring ... the image, the marketing, the white, the wheel. at some point, some broad consumer shift will take place, and iPods will no longer be cool, unless Apple stays ahead of the game and reinvents itself into a new kind of cool. but it has to reinvent ... iPods will not be stylish forever.
i would say that Creative -- from whom i would incidentally never buy any hardware -- understands this well, which is why they're pushing their own idea of the next wave of cool (stupid colors etc, which is not the next wave). they're spending boatloads in marketing just so that when people sour of apple (which, again, is absolutely inevitable given historical trends), they're the next ones in the public eye.