Whither the iPod?

As I was asked about the impending doom of the iPod - a question brought on by the closure of the original Walkman plant in Japan, no doubt, I responded with a little bit of an essay about iPods, digital media, and general purpose technologies. In short, the iPod is no Walkman.

iPod

Is the iPod doomed to follow in the footsteps of the Walkman? I suppose the simple answer is yes, the iPod will eventually fade. The difference, however, is that the iPod is really a computer and as a computer it can do a lot more than a Walkman ever could:

• hold your calendar and contacts
• play games (modest games, at present)
• carry a variety of media (music, video, text)
• give access to album art and discographies including song titles and artist information
• provide a mechanism for rating and sorting your music/videos

It is also intrinsically linked to the computer, and the internet, through iTunes.

All of these things are quite different from the way in which the Walkman fit into our lives. The walkman was present in our lives but it wasn't woven in in the same way.

Moreover, the iPod is constantly being revised in ways that the Walkman was not. So, although there were a profusion of small changes to the walkman, and even one big change (adding the CD-Walkman), it never really became a "platform" in the way that iTunes is, mainly because it wasn't a computer or "general purpose technology," to use the economists' term (see Lipsey, 2005). There is something quite a bit more malleable about digital technologies that lets it become other things that an analog device does not have (even a CD-Walkman isn't really a digital device in that sense).

The iPod, in contrast, is being extended and adapted into video, and (supposedly) a phone. There is an incredible iPod peripherals market - well beyond anything that the walkman engendered - and that extends from simple pouches to hold them to clothing designed to accommodate an iPod and right up to dedicated iPod interfaces in a vehicle. Talk about your ultimate peripheral device - people are making purchase decisions on a car based on whether or not it has an iPod connector!

All of these things suggest both a longer life and more adaptability for the iPod, which is emerging as a platform for innovation and technological change in all kinds of different forms of digital media. The iPod as we know it today will most certainly fade, but it will probably last longer (at least in relative terms, since the pace of change has accelerated since the introduction of the Walkman), and evolve further than those previous versions.

Nothing lives forever, of course, and we can look forward to something completely different in the years to come - perhaps the iTunes phone, who knows - or perhaps driven by some other company altogether.

Reference

Lispey, et. al., General Purpose Technologies and Economic Growth, OUP 2005