the iphone can have the scroll wheel and a numeric keypad. it' very easy.
the iphone can look like the now discontinued ipod mini. except the iphone will have a keypad underneath the scroll wheel. you would use it like you do every other ipod you use today. when you want to use it as a phone you use your thumb to slide the scroll wheel down to expose a keypad then you would use it like any other slider phone.
i didn't think this would be possible but with the introduction of the nano and flash memory, there is more room in the ipod to add the phone internals which are not that big.
i have taken my nokia 8890 apart and the board is thin and small and can easily fit in a mini form factor with the nano internals as well.
the speaker in the nokia 8890 is small. take a look at a picture of the nokia 8890 and imagine the scroll wheel on the slider.
i didn't think this would be possible until i saw the nano in person. that thing is thin!!!
Actually, I have an idea... resurrect the rotary phone. Sort of.
The wheel is designed to go through a list. Why not just make a looped list of the numbers? Seriously, how often do you *dial* a number on your phone, as opposed to searching in an address book? I know I do the latter about 50x the former, literally. And the keypad bites for searching in a list, while the wheel... perfect.
I say make a phone with the iPod wheel and ditch the keypad altogether.
This is the same logic palm used when they decided not to go into the cell phone OS business - they then had to buy Handspring because they discovered their product, the darling of the time had no future.
People don't want to carry around more than they need to. I have a rule that I will only carry one piece of electronics. I would buy a nano but I am already carrying a Treo. It has an SD slot and a much bigger screen. Why do I need a nano??? Just port FairPlay DRM to the device and I am all set. I LOVE apple but I don't want to be forced to carry around a ram reader to protect ITMS/IPOD. I don't care that much.
Also, I personally think the nano will backfire. Because people will see that there really is not too much to the device. Memory, screen, some chip -- exactly why isn't this in my phone will be the next question....
Also - the one case where I want to use an iPod - in the gym - it is of diminished use to me because it does not have an FM radio. The TVs in my gym use FM to let customers listen to TV. I can't watch TV with an iPod. I am sick and tired of waiting for this feature - it is never coming. Screw them. I am not carrying a radio and a nano.
I hate to see apple screwing up but they are. I am tired of not being able to have a radio with my mp3 or play music on a non-apple device. I can't be alone on this and I am an Apple fan. People who are objective will give Apple exactly 3 seconds before moving on...
what would be very funny/unique/amazing was if you had to dial your iPhone like an old fashioned telephone, using the click wheel. therfore negating the need for ugly ROKR buttons.
Brilliant!!
Before anyone gives me hassle, i haven't yet figured out how to do text messages...
People please. Rubenstein and Schiller work for Apple. Their public statements are there to support Apple's position at a particular point in time. Apple see's no way of making big splash in a commodotised market of compromised multipurpose do-hickies, ergo 'they are not a good idea'. I have no doubt however that Apple is very interested in the mobile phone market and is carefully building expertise in that area.
I think alot of people are simply fed up with the whole nonsense of mobiles. An Apple phone with simple clear design and interface; iCal, AddressBook and iTunes; NO camera; would sell like the proverbial. The problem is as it was with the record companies - careful and difficult negotiations are required with a bunch of very big and wary companies around the world; Apple's network needs to be global, multilayered and simple to use; unique in other words.
Well I think Vinney is 100% right! Apple are saying convergence doesnt work coz it suits their business model NOW. They are earning a fortune from the ipod, so why destroy that with an iphone. And they need the income to cover the intelmac transition - as a sort of insurance.
But I guess, deep down in the Infinite Loop Apple HAS built several iphones, which function 1000% better than todays mobiles, they have a clik-wheel, and integrate the ipod. These iphones are probably very simplified, where they have stripped away all the unneccesary crap, have a crystal clear GUI, and look stunning. And there is a whole load of negotiating to be done with the carriers etc. How long before these devices come to the market? 2-5 years? Your guess is as good as mine - but they exist!
I say make a phone with the iPod wheel and ditch the keypad altogether.
Unlike moggy, I like that idea. Adding a minimal number of buttons would be useful, sort of like the iPod had for awhile (even though that became unnecessary and unpopular for an iPod), without overcomplicating the device and its UI. (edit: stripped of the unnecessary crap, like Rob M just wrote and others have suggested.)
Maybe a phone is better on its own but the pocket creates an imperative to combine things. Also there are synergies. The camera in the phone has some advantages. Music in the phone will have the same, pause or quiet, one headset...
This is the same logic palm used when they decided not to go into the cell phone OS business - they then had to buy Handspring because they discovered their product, the darling of the time had no future.
People don't want to carry around more than they need to.
Is that why 90% of all people have PDAs? Oh, they don't.
Quote:
Originally posted by junkie
People who are objective will give Apple exactly 3 seconds before moving on...
This is the same logic palm used when they decided not to go into the cell phone OS business - they then had to buy Handspring because they discovered their product, the darling of the time had no future.
Not sure what your point here was... they bought Handspring for the phone hardware design expertise, not for the software.
And look at the Treos today - do they look like *phones*? Not so much. Is the primary input device a *numeric keypad*? Not so much. They're a communciations-enabled computing device with a mix of inputs... which has been my point. Trying to slam everything into a numeric keypad input format is just asinine. The successful products are those that are designed by people who take a step back and rethink the situation.
Actually, I have an idea... resurrect the rotary phone. Sort of.
The wheel is designed to go through a list. Why not just make a looped list of the numbers? Seriously, how often do you *dial* a number on your phone, as opposed to searching in an address book? I know I do the latter about 50x the former, literally. And the keypad bites for searching in a list, while the wheel... perfect.
I say make a phone with the iPod wheel and ditch the keypad altogether.
Just make the keypad slide in and out of the bottom of the phone 'a la Treo buttons that I've seen and some Blackberry models.
Take a Form-follows-Function reality check for a moment for a mythical phone/mp3 player convergent device.
Let's be generous on the phone side and say 50% of the time you use the device, you are listening to music and 50% using the phone. I think it is more 80:20, but let's stick to 50:50. So half the time you don't need a phone or keypad at all, you just want the mp3 player and the best form for that is the iPod and clickwheel....we can all agree?
For when you do need a phone, 50% of that time you are (usually) answering the phone, not initiating the call. So 50% of that time you don't need a keypad, just the ringer and screen for caller ID - we can all agree?
Of the other 50% of the time you are actually initiating the call, lets say 50% of those times you call someone in your address book and again you do not need the keypad and only need a quickly navigatable screen UI. That is best served by the clickwheel - we can all agree?
Of the remaining times you use a phone, you actually need to punch some numbered buttons, well then let the keypad slide out for temporary use. Only 12.5% of the time using our mythic combo device is the keypad even useful, and that is being generous since that doesn't account for the times you are initiating calls by "redialing," dialing your voicemail and other menu driven dialings ("dial last received calls," etc.). AND it doesn't take into account the amount of dialing you do at work on work phones that are probably land lines and not appropriate for your cellphone anyway.
In my opinion, the keypad is only useful for less than 10% of the time/actions during which I am using this phone/iPod device. So why come at the problem from this dialing-1990's phone-centric frame of mind? 'Cause it is easier for the phone companies to implement the same 'ole thang... just like the RIAA and CD's.
Lastly, I am holding a 3 year old Moto, non-flip phone and with the amount of space taken up by the "menu" "send" "end" and navigation buttons, you could EASILY put a clickwheel there and make it not only more user friendly, but more reliable and sturdy....and have the keypad and wheel accessible at the same time.
Hopefully we can agree that the form-factor for an iPod-centric phone is reasonable.
Now the question is for whether the functionality is market driven enough for people to buy the thing and profitable enough for carriers to adopt the thing. In answer, I think the iPod has proven people will adopt new ways of doing things (afterall the keypad replaced the rotary dial) and so that behavioural hurdle is an easy one. As for carrier adoption, just make a token effort to allow some music downloads at a premium price via an iTunes/Cingular interface and even give Cingular a big cut of the pie, since that pie is going to be very small anyway. Then, like with camera phones, enough will be sold to capitalize the rest of the infrastructure.
Aside: The iPod line is going to HAVE to diversify. The device needs to expand to size of the ecosystem and that includes iPods with radio and BT and telephony. And that means keeping the iPod Mini even after announcing the iPod Nano!!!! Even the name denotes that they are two different creatures with two different markets!!
Heck, even on my just-phone, I use the keypad almost exclusively for list navigation... something the wheel excels at. I use my phone several times a day, but can literally count the number of times I've dialed a number directly on it in the past month on my fingers. Of one hand. And one finger. The other hundred or so times I've used it to dial out, it's been... list navigation. Which the numeric keypad is really poorly designed for, IMO.
The cell phone as number-dialing-device is waning. Between syncing address books, incoming call logs ("Oh, just add that number..."), and such, *DIALING* is a dying and quite secondary function of a phone, as I see it.
Not sure what your point here was... they bought Handspring for the phone hardware design expertise, not for the software.
And look at the Treos today - do they look like *phones*? Not so much. Is the primary input device a *numeric keypad*? Not so much. They're a communciations-enabled computing device with a mix of inputs... which has been my point. Trying to slam everything into a numeric keypad input format is just asinine. The successful products are those that are designed by people who take a step back and rethink the situation.
I did not say they bought handspring for an OS. I said Palm had an opportunity to be a phone OS. They had sync and mobility. They could have been a software maker for cell phones and added a lot of value at the time but they wanted to be just a PDA. Here is one article from the period:
In the end, the PDA on its own was not that great of a business. That is my point. Palm bought Handspring because they needed to have a phone device, but they could have owned the space if they had vision for how a stand alone PDA would stack up against the sheer volumes mobiles and the consumer driven pressure to integrate things into the mobile.
I am not saying anything about the UI or numeric keypad. Is a numeric keypad a good UI for a PDA? - no, of course not. Do some of the functions of a PDA make sense in a mobile even with a numeric keypad - well yes. Even in my numeric keypad phone, I'd still like address book sync, I'd still like an appointment reminder. At the time, those functions were unique to Palm, they could have added that sort of integration to the mobile business regardless of the form factor. They missed that opportunity because they wanted to be religious about being a stand alone product. That was the mistake, to assume one hardware dependent usage pattern was what people would want in the future.
Getting back to the iPod, Apple now has the same arrogance. They see huge sales, and they are confounding naysayings. But that is not the same as being smart for the next step. If 50% of mobile phones have music in a different DRM than Fairplay/ITMS, then the iPod is relegated to a small corner of the media business until it dies.
They should be building a platform that extends to usage patterns that they are not in love with, that are not the Apple ideal, but that users want. Individuals will gradually want one good device for this stuff. That device may be different for different people, for me it is primarily an enhanced Treo. Maybe I will get an iPod too, but I want it all to work together. Maybe you like lots of devices where each has an ideal interface for task, I can see that side. But the iPod/ITMS/Fairplay platform should serve us both.
I did not say they bought handspring for an OS. I said Palm had an opportunity to be a phone OS. They had sync and mobility. They could have been a software maker for cell phones and added a lot of value at the time but they wanted to be just a PDA. I am not saying anything about the UI or numeric keypad. Is a numeric keypad a good UI for a PDA? - no, of course not.
Okay, so can we stop talking about pda's?!?!?! Microsoft is going to own that market soon. Apple should have done something with it and I think they gave up too soon, but that is not what this thread is about.
Quote:
Getting back to the iPod, Apple now has the same arrogance. They see huge sales, and they are confounding naysayings. But that is not the same as being smart for the next step. If 50% of mobile phones have music in a different DRM than Fairplay/ITMS, then the iPod is relegated to a small corner of the media business until it dies.
They should be building a platform that extends to usage patterns that they are not in love with, that are not the Apple ideal, but that users want. Individuals will gradually want one good device for this stuff. That device may be different for different people, for me it is primarily an enhanced Treo. Maybe I will get an iPod too, but I want it all to work together. Maybe you like lots of devices where each has an ideal interface for task, I can see that side. But the iPod/ITMS/Fairplay platform should serve us both.
I agree with almost everything you said, though I don't think 50% of the phone music market is as significant as you do.
iPods will still push the industry, because Apple still will hold the majority of legal downloads and no matter how many there are, the badly implemented cellphones won't be driving the market.
The iPod division should have more money than God to do R&D and it needs to evolve in more ways than in color and size. To take a biological analogy too far.... if a species dominates a habitat, it can do one of two things, diversify into more species to fill niches or not diversify, but continue to evolve as one very successful species even as others fill niches. Apple has tried to do the second way in computers and has been successful in that strategy. I believe the iPod should go the other way. Evolve several species and let the market do all the work of deciding which species should continue. That means giving up some control as to the final products, but it saves you from making the one or two bad moves that kills off you species. In short, Apple needs to trust in evolution and in its ability to make superior products even if it means one or more versions of the iPod end up not being insanely successful, AND let the market kill off a product, not the marketing department... as in (again) the fricking iPod Mini.
Comments
the iphone can look like the now discontinued ipod mini. except the iphone will have a keypad underneath the scroll wheel. you would use it like you do every other ipod you use today. when you want to use it as a phone you use your thumb to slide the scroll wheel down to expose a keypad then you would use it like any other slider phone.
i didn't think this would be possible but with the introduction of the nano and flash memory, there is more room in the ipod to add the phone internals which are not that big.
i have taken my nokia 8890 apart and the board is thin and small and can easily fit in a mini form factor with the nano internals as well.
the speaker in the nokia 8890 is small. take a look at a picture of the nokia 8890 and imagine the scroll wheel on the slider.
i didn't think this would be possible until i saw the nano in person. that thing is thin!!!
chung lee
The wheel is designed to go through a list. Why not just make a looped list of the numbers? Seriously, how often do you *dial* a number on your phone, as opposed to searching in an address book? I know I do the latter about 50x the former, literally. And the keypad bites for searching in a list, while the wheel... perfect.
I say make a phone with the iPod wheel and ditch the keypad altogether.
I say make a phone with the iPod wheel and ditch the keypad altogether.
worst.idea.ever.
This is the same logic palm used when they decided not to go into the cell phone OS business - they then had to buy Handspring because they discovered their product, the darling of the time had no future.
People don't want to carry around more than they need to. I have a rule that I will only carry one piece of electronics. I would buy a nano but I am already carrying a Treo. It has an SD slot and a much bigger screen. Why do I need a nano??? Just port FairPlay DRM to the device and I am all set. I LOVE apple but I don't want to be forced to carry around a ram reader to protect ITMS/IPOD. I don't care that much.
Also, I personally think the nano will backfire. Because people will see that there really is not too much to the device. Memory, screen, some chip -- exactly why isn't this in my phone will be the next question....
Also - the one case where I want to use an iPod - in the gym - it is of diminished use to me because it does not have an FM radio. The TVs in my gym use FM to let customers listen to TV. I can't watch TV with an iPod. I am sick and tired of waiting for this feature - it is never coming. Screw them. I am not carrying a radio and a nano.
I hate to see apple screwing up but they are. I am tired of not being able to have a radio with my mp3 or play music on a non-apple device. I can't be alone on this and I am an Apple fan. People who are objective will give Apple exactly 3 seconds before moving on...
Brilliant!!
Before anyone gives me hassle, i haven't yet figured out how to do text messages...
8) 8) 8)
Originally posted by vinney57
People please. Rubenstein and Schiller work for Apple. Their public statements are there to support Apple's position at a particular point in time. Apple see's no way of making big splash in a commodotised market of compromised multipurpose do-hickies, ergo 'they are not a good idea'. I have no doubt however that Apple is very interested in the mobile phone market and is carefully building expertise in that area.
I think alot of people are simply fed up with the whole nonsense of mobiles. An Apple phone with simple clear design and interface; iCal, AddressBook and iTunes; NO camera; would sell like the proverbial. The problem is as it was with the record companies - careful and difficult negotiations are required with a bunch of very big and wary companies around the world; Apple's network needs to be global, multilayered and simple to use; unique in other words.
Well I think Vinney is 100% right! Apple are saying convergence doesnt work coz it suits their business model NOW. They are earning a fortune from the ipod, so why destroy that with an iphone. And they need the income to cover the intelmac transition - as a sort of insurance.
But I guess, deep down in the Infinite Loop Apple HAS built several iphones, which function 1000% better than todays mobiles, they have a clik-wheel, and integrate the ipod. These iphones are probably very simplified, where they have stripped away all the unneccesary crap, have a crystal clear GUI, and look stunning. And there is a whole load of negotiating to be done with the carriers etc. How long before these devices come to the market? 2-5 years? Your guess is as good as mine - but they exist!
Originally posted by Kickaha
I say make a phone with the iPod wheel and ditch the keypad altogether.
Unlike moggy, I like that idea. Adding a minimal number of buttons would be useful, sort of like the iPod had for awhile (even though that became unnecessary and unpopular for an iPod), without overcomplicating the device and its UI. (edit: stripped of the unnecessary crap, like Rob M just wrote and others have suggested.)
Originally posted by AppleInsider
"Is there a toaster that can also brew coffee?,"
Yep: http://www.cookbydesign.com/31tomaab.html
Maybe a phone is better on its own but the pocket creates an imperative to combine things. Also there are synergies. The camera in the phone has some advantages. Music in the phone will have the same, pause or quiet, one headset...
Originally posted by junkie
STUPID STUPID STUPID with some arrogance mixed in
This is the same logic palm used when they decided not to go into the cell phone OS business - they then had to buy Handspring because they discovered their product, the darling of the time had no future.
People don't want to carry around more than they need to.
Is that why 90% of all people have PDAs? Oh, they don't.
Originally posted by junkie
People who are objective will give Apple exactly 3 seconds before moving on...
Hmm... 16 mio. iPods sold this year alone
Originally posted by junkie
This is the same logic palm used when they decided not to go into the cell phone OS business - they then had to buy Handspring because they discovered their product, the darling of the time had no future.
They didn't buy Handspring for an OS... Handspring used PalmOS under license. http://www.palm.com/us/company/corporate/timeline.html
Not sure what your point here was... they bought Handspring for the phone hardware design expertise, not for the software.
And look at the Treos today - do they look like *phones*? Not so much. Is the primary input device a *numeric keypad*? Not so much. They're a communciations-enabled computing device with a mix of inputs... which has been my point. Trying to slam everything into a numeric keypad input format is just asinine. The successful products are those that are designed by people who take a step back and rethink the situation.
Originally posted by Kickaha
Actually, I have an idea... resurrect the rotary phone. Sort of.
The wheel is designed to go through a list. Why not just make a looped list of the numbers? Seriously, how often do you *dial* a number on your phone, as opposed to searching in an address book? I know I do the latter about 50x the former, literally. And the keypad bites for searching in a list, while the wheel... perfect.
I say make a phone with the iPod wheel and ditch the keypad altogether.
Just make the keypad slide in and out of the bottom of the phone 'a la Treo buttons that I've seen and some Blackberry models.
Take a Form-follows-Function reality check for a moment for a mythical phone/mp3 player convergent device.
Let's be generous on the phone side and say 50% of the time you use the device, you are listening to music and 50% using the phone. I think it is more 80:20, but let's stick to 50:50. So half the time you don't need a phone or keypad at all, you just want the mp3 player and the best form for that is the iPod and clickwheel....we can all agree?
For when you do need a phone, 50% of that time you are (usually) answering the phone, not initiating the call. So 50% of that time you don't need a keypad, just the ringer and screen for caller ID - we can all agree?
Of the other 50% of the time you are actually initiating the call, lets say 50% of those times you call someone in your address book and again you do not need the keypad and only need a quickly navigatable screen UI. That is best served by the clickwheel - we can all agree?
Of the remaining times you use a phone, you actually need to punch some numbered buttons, well then let the keypad slide out for temporary use. Only 12.5% of the time using our mythic combo device is the keypad even useful, and that is being generous since that doesn't account for the times you are initiating calls by "redialing," dialing your voicemail and other menu driven dialings ("dial last received calls," etc.). AND it doesn't take into account the amount of dialing you do at work on work phones that are probably land lines and not appropriate for your cellphone anyway.
In my opinion, the keypad is only useful for less than 10% of the time/actions during which I am using this phone/iPod device. So why come at the problem from this dialing-1990's phone-centric frame of mind? 'Cause it is easier for the phone companies to implement the same 'ole thang... just like the RIAA and CD's.
Lastly, I am holding a 3 year old Moto, non-flip phone and with the amount of space taken up by the "menu" "send" "end" and navigation buttons, you could EASILY put a clickwheel there and make it not only more user friendly, but more reliable and sturdy....and have the keypad and wheel accessible at the same time.
Hopefully we can agree that the form-factor for an iPod-centric phone is reasonable.
Now the question is for whether the functionality is market driven enough for people to buy the thing and profitable enough for carriers to adopt the thing. In answer, I think the iPod has proven people will adopt new ways of doing things (afterall the keypad replaced the rotary dial) and so that behavioural hurdle is an easy one. As for carrier adoption, just make a token effort to allow some music downloads at a premium price via an iTunes/Cingular interface and even give Cingular a big cut of the pie, since that pie is going to be very small anyway. Then, like with camera phones, enough will be sold to capitalize the rest of the infrastructure.
Aside: The iPod line is going to HAVE to diversify. The device needs to expand to size of the ecosystem and that includes iPods with radio and BT and telephony. And that means keeping the iPod Mini even after announcing the iPod Nano!!!! Even the name denotes that they are two different creatures with two different markets!!
Heck, even on my just-phone, I use the keypad almost exclusively for list navigation... something the wheel excels at. I use my phone several times a day, but can literally count the number of times I've dialed a number directly on it in the past month on my fingers. Of one hand. And one finger. The other hundred or so times I've used it to dial out, it's been... list navigation. Which the numeric keypad is really poorly designed for, IMO.
The cell phone as number-dialing-device is waning. Between syncing address books, incoming call logs ("Oh, just add that number..."), and such, *DIALING* is a dying and quite secondary function of a phone, as I see it.
Originally posted by Kickaha
They didn't buy Handspring for an OS... Handspring used PalmOS under license. http://www.palm.com/us/company/corporate/timeline.html
Not sure what your point here was... they bought Handspring for the phone hardware design expertise, not for the software.
And look at the Treos today - do they look like *phones*? Not so much. Is the primary input device a *numeric keypad*? Not so much. They're a communciations-enabled computing device with a mix of inputs... which has been my point. Trying to slam everything into a numeric keypad input format is just asinine. The successful products are those that are designed by people who take a step back and rethink the situation.
I did not say they bought handspring for an OS. I said Palm had an opportunity to be a phone OS. They had sync and mobility. They could have been a software maker for cell phones and added a lot of value at the time but they wanted to be just a PDA. Here is one article from the period:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2001/11...s_pda_company/
In the end, the PDA on its own was not that great of a business. That is my point. Palm bought Handspring because they needed to have a phone device, but they could have owned the space if they had vision for how a stand alone PDA would stack up against the sheer volumes mobiles and the consumer driven pressure to integrate things into the mobile.
I am not saying anything about the UI or numeric keypad. Is a numeric keypad a good UI for a PDA? - no, of course not. Do some of the functions of a PDA make sense in a mobile even with a numeric keypad - well yes. Even in my numeric keypad phone, I'd still like address book sync, I'd still like an appointment reminder. At the time, those functions were unique to Palm, they could have added that sort of integration to the mobile business regardless of the form factor. They missed that opportunity because they wanted to be religious about being a stand alone product. That was the mistake, to assume one hardware dependent usage pattern was what people would want in the future.
Getting back to the iPod, Apple now has the same arrogance. They see huge sales, and they are confounding naysayings. But that is not the same as being smart for the next step. If 50% of mobile phones have music in a different DRM than Fairplay/ITMS, then the iPod is relegated to a small corner of the media business until it dies.
They should be building a platform that extends to usage patterns that they are not in love with, that are not the Apple ideal, but that users want. Individuals will gradually want one good device for this stuff. That device may be different for different people, for me it is primarily an enhanced Treo. Maybe I will get an iPod too, but I want it all to work together. Maybe you like lots of devices where each has an ideal interface for task, I can see that side. But the iPod/ITMS/Fairplay platform should serve us both.
Originally posted by junkie
I did not say they bought handspring for an OS. I said Palm had an opportunity to be a phone OS. They had sync and mobility. They could have been a software maker for cell phones and added a lot of value at the time but they wanted to be just a PDA. I am not saying anything about the UI or numeric keypad. Is a numeric keypad a good UI for a PDA? - no, of course not.
Okay, so can we stop talking about pda's?!?!?! Microsoft is going to own that market soon. Apple should have done something with it and I think they gave up too soon, but that is not what this thread is about.
Getting back to the iPod, Apple now has the same arrogance. They see huge sales, and they are confounding naysayings. But that is not the same as being smart for the next step. If 50% of mobile phones have music in a different DRM than Fairplay/ITMS, then the iPod is relegated to a small corner of the media business until it dies.
They should be building a platform that extends to usage patterns that they are not in love with, that are not the Apple ideal, but that users want. Individuals will gradually want one good device for this stuff. That device may be different for different people, for me it is primarily an enhanced Treo. Maybe I will get an iPod too, but I want it all to work together. Maybe you like lots of devices where each has an ideal interface for task, I can see that side. But the iPod/ITMS/Fairplay platform should serve us both.
I agree with almost everything you said, though I don't think 50% of the phone music market is as significant as you do.
iPods will still push the industry, because Apple still will hold the majority of legal downloads and no matter how many there are, the badly implemented cellphones won't be driving the market.
The iPod division should have more money than God to do R&D and it needs to evolve in more ways than in color and size. To take a biological analogy too far.... if a species dominates a habitat, it can do one of two things, diversify into more species to fill niches or not diversify, but continue to evolve as one very successful species even as others fill niches. Apple has tried to do the second way in computers and has been successful in that strategy. I believe the iPod should go the other way. Evolve several species and let the market do all the work of deciding which species should continue. That means giving up some control as to the final products, but it saves you from making the one or two bad moves that kills off you species. In short, Apple needs to trust in evolution and in its ability to make superior products even if it means one or more versions of the iPod end up not being insanely successful, AND let the market kill off a product, not the marketing department... as in (again) the fricking iPod Mini.
These two functions, along with PDA functionality, and who knows what else, will converge in a few years.
If the iPod doesn't follow suit, it will fail.