I was admittedly a late adopter to the iPod. It took years for me to ditch my one-album-at-a-time Walkman CD player, and even then I tried out several iPod competitors before jumping on the Apple bandwagon.
The reason I bring this up is an article I saw recently about the iPod possibly being on the chopping block as sales of the devices have steadily declined over the years.
More importantly, this brings up an interesting debate about the roles we want our devices to play in our lives. At its heart, this is the question of "do I want my device to do everything pretty well, or one thing great?"
The biggest reason for the iPod decline is obviously that the iPhone can play movies and music in addition to app support and call capabilities. It's not a big leap to assume many people decided against the iPod because the iPhone can perform all of those functions.
And it's hesitations like those that have led a lot of skeptics to believe that Apple will start discontinuing some of their iPod models, especially the iPod Classic. But as someone who happens to own an iPod Classic, I think this would be a bad move.
Granted, my 160GB ipod doesn't have apps or calling capabilities, and is pretty bulky by iPod standards. However, what my iPod does have is 10 times the storage space of my iPhone and is a heck of a lot cheaper once you factor in data plans and whatnot.
For me, the iPod is the dedicated media-playing device with a long battery life that has gotten me through plenty of trips and vacations. If anything, I think the iPod Nano is in much more danger of extinction than the Classic.
Regardless, despite the demand for apps and mobile, there's a case to be made for the dedicated device. This is why I think the iPod, and all mp3 players for that matter, have a fighting chance to stay alive in the ever-crowded tech jungle.
