I wouldn't mind seeing a phone that would compete with the iPod. But I don't think phones will completely dethrone the iPod.

Honestly, I am getting tired of carrying both my phone and iPod around on trips (charger, cables, etc.) Also, if you go hiking or to the gym then you're carrying your phone, iPod and since Apple still doesn't include a built in FM tuner, a small tuner.

I would gladly trade one of my iPods (but still keep my video iPod) for a phone like the Sony Ericsson W810 when it comes out. I don't care if it doesn't work with the iTunes store. That's a minor issue given all the advantages mentioned above. It's not that difficult to get your songs on the phone.

It would be even better if it did work with the iTunes store but that would not likely happen anytime.

MS is talking out of their butt but I wouldn't mind there being a little bit of truth to it. If just to give us more options and keep Apple on their toes. I don't want Apple to get complacent, do you?

Go Apple

"Wooooo! C'mon! Give it up for meeeeee!"

..because no one had ever thought of selling prominent advertising space on webpages before.. It took Google to make that groundbreaking business model. Page ranking algorithms never used before for search engines aren't innovative.

And this is why Microsoft is big, fat and stupid. They don't even know what innovation is yet alone how to participate in it.

Ballmer (amazing that this guys is being taken seriously) forgets, while talking about innovation and improvement, that Apple isn't sitting still. By the time the phones are grown up music players (and that means play more than 8 songs and have giant battery life to support 20 hours of music AND still be able to have a week battery left for calling) Apple has already improved the iPod to something even better. "The rest" will always be catching up with Apple. Unfortunately. The world could use more innovators, not followers (read: coperate America).

the iPod needs to get phone capabilities, not the other way around.

Phone makers can't even get the voice part right never mind adding other features...!

The interesting thing is that ipod is also a business-model; in this case built around a mp3 player that happens to be the best. The business-model is based on innovation and perfection; it was thought out with real people in mind by real people. Microsoft is a re-marketeer of other peoples' ideas, it's main objective is controlling the market it caters to and defend it's market-share. This has come to a point where one could say that their business practice today and most if not all of it's actions are based on paranoia over other co's successes. One can even recognise this mentality in their advertising; words like "protection", "security", "safety", "peace of mind" are plastered allover. At the same time, it was Microsoft that brought this misery to market in the first place. Microsoft Office has mostly changed cosmetically for nearly ten full years. I think Microsoft would be best off developing Office for Linux and forget about Windows because if it continues developing the way it looks, in five years time it will be as good as a steam-tractor in space.

I did give up my iPod, selling it to my sister, because I didn't use it as much as I thought I would - a lot of times I just listen to music on my iBook.

If I get a Treo 650, as I'm planning to do, I will have switched from iPod to phone, but I will specifically be using a Palm OS phone and not Windows Mobile.

Just so you know, Bill :)

Like MS could do anything that could unseat iPod in a decade. And then it would have wheels and ask you every three feet if you need help walking. If a phone supersedes iPod Apple will build it, and it'll work.

As low-end CMOS image sensor improves (a long way to go still), cell phones will eventually replace ultra compact cameras (at least entry level models). As battery life and NAND density improve, cell phones will replace iPod... except that they will run Apple's software and not Microsoft. Currently, iTunes and Safari are available for cell phones and the scope will only expand to cover other areas, maybe even a phone co-designed by Apple (I really doubt Apple had any hands on designing Motorola's ROKR phones) or maybe even designed and made by Apple.

So how is my iTMS music collection going to be migrated to a Windows phone?

That's the question. In the same way that MS has locked people into their platform with software, Apple has locked people into theirs with music DRM. It really is that simple. Why do many people not want to buy a Mac? Because they don't want to replace their software. Hence the need for virtualization with the Intel Macs. Is Mr. Ballmer planning on reverse engineering Fairplay so that I can play my iTMS songs on his player? No. So we already know how this project will end don't we.

Any good web design book will tell you why Google won over AOL, Yahoo and MSN. Go to their home page and there is one box that does one thing - search.

Ditto the iPod - it's won because it does one thing very well - the whole device is optimised towards being a music player, and navigating music collections.

Now maybe once we have a touch-screen device, the issue of controls will disappear as you can implement them in software, but until then I don't see iPod customers wanting to step back to a mobile-phone button based interface.

I listen to music on an iPod and I use my cellphone to make calls. I don't need to listen to music on my cellphone. If I did it would be an iPod compatible cellphone with 60gig hard drive. I just don't see to many of these being built in reality.

Notice how all that Billy and Stevie better known as Dumb and Dumber, do these days is explain how they failed but however that they will eventually get it right.

Your ape got out of its cage again.

Of course the irony is that it'll be Apple's phone that eventually dethrones the player-only iPods (while dethroning Verizon/Cingular/T-Mobile, Palm, Microsoft, Motorola, Sony-Ericcson, Nokia, and Samsung at the same time).

This is the dancing-money-boy, developers-developers-developers guy, right? Maybe Apple ought to cast him in the silhouette ad for the iPhone. I'd pay to download that.

Microsoft is desperately latching on to anything it thinks will undermine the iPod. First it was Portable Media Centers, now they've seized on an article that says phones will challenge the iPod as their storage capacity increases. But there's more to it than storage.

As other posted have said, if there's an iPod killer it will most likely come from Apple itself. Apple will release a phone-in-an-iPod (or some new device no one's thought of yet) as well as music-only iPods, and cover all bases.

anyone takes Steve Balmer seriously anymore. Making commentary like this about iPod doesn't help...

Also, this is funny -

"I was just as mad at myself as I was at our research and development department."

Since Apple is Microsoft's R&D, I guess he's mad at Apple for iPod's dominance, and for this Google thing (whatever he was talking about).

The didn't quite finish that opening sentence:

"Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer believes Apple's iPod will be dethroned by a new generation of mobile phones *from Apple*.

Didn't Microsoft also say they would sovle their security problem & that longhorn would be released a long time ago. God Microsoft does tend to talk some s***!

...where are you?

we miss your special brand of illogic.

And on the same day MacNN headlights : "Shazam sells iTunes songs via phones..." Apple isn't stupid Balmer!

"Half of the time that we look for something, we don't find it. There is a lot of room for improvement." Learn how to use Google, being somewhat intelligent helps allot.

If you step back it's almost obvious, although the tech isn't quite there yet: music player + iChatAV - idiot telcos = mucho bucks. Think: small vidphone moving images + awesome compression + network.

I like the dancing Balmer Bear iTunes ad idea, too.

If any of you have ever seen this preening dufus in action, you'll know that it doesn't matter which end his verbal excrement comes from as anything eminating from this dude simpley stinks.

Apple has a genuine winner in the ipod. It's price point for the video models are almost at that of a cheap PC, but they're selling a ton more of them. The market share for the ipod continues to grow as does that of the Mac. MS's problem is how they approach the user on a philosophical level. If you've ever seen Ballmer in action, you'll know philosophy doesn't enter into the equation-ever.

Oh...and Ballmer is fat.

"We will soon witness a lot of innovations and changes in portable devices"

As in "We will sit back and watch others innovate and make changes then scrable to catch up". Another thing, does it take a CEO to come up with a genius quote like that?

www.internet-nexus.com/2006/04/will-linux-or-mac-os-x-ever-be-true.htm

"Half of the time that we look for something, we don't find it. There is a lot of room for improvement."

I can't believe he actually said that... unless he was talking about the MS Vista team...