Why Apple's new Offerings may be Obsolete by 2006

I was just reading Murco MacLeod and William Lyons article “Why your iPod will be out of date in a year” and have to agree.
I’m tired of carrying so many gadgets. I’ve been tempted to buy the Nokia Engage or a Sidekick for some time (Siemens and LG have some tight products on the way). But the one area they are fatally flawed in is MP3 playback and storage… and this is why the iPod products continue to dominate.
The ability to store large amounts of music is horrid in competitors products and so is their GUI. These machines should ship with at least 1GB built-in flash memory, mini HD’s, or something. with the additional option to swap out more with SD cards. Music should be a top priority with these and newer hybrid use gadgets. Palm’s new TX and LifeDrive should market the listening pleasures of their devices. Business people listen to music, ebooks and news (podcasts) on their commute (either by train or car). So why aren’t these companies in tune to the basic needs of homosapiens via our integral habits of life?
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I was just reading Murco MacLeod and William Lyons article “Why your iPod will be out of date in a year” and have to agree.
I’m tired of carrying so many gadgets. I’ve been tempted to buy the Nokia Engage or a Sidekick for some time (Siemens and LG have some tight products on the way). But the one area they are fatally flawed in is MP3 playback and storage… and this is why the iPod products continue to dominate.
The ability to store large amounts of music is horrid in competitors products and so is their GUI. These machines should ship with at least 1GB built-in flash memory, mini HD’s, or something. with the additional option to swap out more with SD cards. Music should be a top priority with these and newer hybrid use gadgets. Palm’s new TX and LifeDrive should market the listening pleasures of their devices. Business people listen to music, ebooks and news (podcasts) on their commute (either by train or car). So why aren’t these companies in tune to the basic needs of homosapiens via our integral habits of life?
I think when companies finally get it and ship products based on fundamental needs and when they realize that large amounts of storage are needed to sell their products, the iPod sales could slump. With the exception of the nano which is too small and cool to not have one, but then again a phone done right can easily eliminate this gadget.
New hybrid use devices in 2006 will offer video playback (MP4), better listening experiences, better GUIs, social interaction (phone/camera) and with it larger storage options (like the RCA Lyra has been doing). Once that new phone/music/video player ships with 1-4GB of memory my iPods are hitting eBay. Until then… go Apple go!
One way Apple could escape the fallout and catapult itself beyond the fray is to offer a phone(key pad) add-on that docks to the bottom of a iPod and for the Nano, maybe a two megapixel camera attachment.