Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, iPod Family, Apple
TUAW Poll: Do you use your phone as an MP3 player?
Last night I posted about a kinda kooky article predicting the iPod's future doom at the merciless hands of MP3-playin' cell phones. Well, that got me to thinking: how many people actually use their phones as MP3 players? To come to a wholly scientific and 100% accurate conclusion, I'm posting this poll, and I ask -- nay, demand -- that all answer accordingly. And see more thoughts (and reader comments of note) on the topic after the jump.The question of whether the iPod's dominance will be eradicated by the budding popularity of music-on-the-phone is after all a very valid issue. Since many readers skip right over most posts' comments, I've included some of the most notable from last night's discussion, which include some great insight.
"I also have an MP3 playing phone, but would never use it for that purpose. Storage is too limited, the MP3 functions are poorly implemented, and transferring songs to it is a pain" -- tim
Very true, tim. I've fiddled with a few MP3 phones (a SLVR, one or two Windows Mobile devices, etc.), and they all share a common theme: working them is a royal pain. Everything, from copying music to listening to that music is tedious and full of unnecessary hassle. Even the SLVR, which communicates directly with iTunes, can be frustrating to set up if you don't get it exactly right the first time (and the iTunes phone interface itself is dog slow). Not to mention the storage problem...
"It all depends on what you decide to compare the iPod to (and why).
If you decide to sum up all MP3 playing devices, you should add:
COMPUTERS!!! (notebooks, portables and even desktops)
Cell phones
Car MP3 players
PDAs
Gaming devices that happen to play music, too
etc...
The comparison gets even harder as new iPods emerge. What will you compare a video iPod to? a portable DVD? a PDA?" -- Ken
That's true -- the article says Apple fails to include all portable MP3 players. A laptop is a portable MP3 player, is it not?
"Phones have Camera's too but I don't see people throwing away there £300 cannons to use there VGA quality camera pics." -- WinMacLin
Hmph. Why didn't I think of that?
"Can TUAW and everybody else please put a dead stop to giving Thurrott more attention? Thurrott this. Thurrott that. He says whatever to get attention, over and over again. I really don't understand it any more why this guy even gets an ounce of spotlight ... and most people are absolutely sick of him and the resulting debates / forum threads / blog entries etc. like these." -- icerabbit
Paul Thurrott is a respected industry pundit. People read and believe what he says. And to dispute something he writes is not hate mongering or unnecessary promotion -- it's encouraging debate on viable topics. While I don't always agree with him, I respect him and his insight -- and some things are certainly worth debating.
"I have to say that since I got my Samsung A900, I've stopped carrying my iPod on a daily basis. I started listening to podcasts on my commute and found that my phone handles this task quite well. I have an AppleScript that converts the podcasts to AAC and then I move them over to the phone via bluetooth. I have to carry the phone anyway and it's much smaller than my 3G iPod - about the same size as a Nano." -- Kilgore
I should give that phone a try. I think if the phone manufacturers can make the MP3 functionality simple and, you know, functional, they may have a chance at dethroning King 'Pod.
"Thurott doesn't go far enough - what about people who spontaneously burst into song? They are in effect a human Mp3 player - so, the ipod share goes lower - especially if you count insane people. As the Earth rotates, millions of people actually turn off their ipod to go to sleep - that's a market share loss every night! Potentially millions of those people could have a horrible nightmare and want to buy a WMA 128k flash player the next morning! Again, more market share losses." -- jbelkin
Have you ever considered a job in market share analysis?
"It all about the software. iTunes + iPod = simple." -- AC
Bingo!
"About the 14% market share. I assume you are willing to accept that musicphones are a fair rival to iPods, as Apple's own CFO Peter Oppenheimer just two days ago said so, and he felt the SonyEricsson Walkman phone is getting rather close to iPods - but of course not as good. Also Oppenheimer admitted Apple is planning an iPod phone." -- Tomi Ahonen
Whoa there, buddy. They didn't admit anything. They said they weren't 'sitting around doing nothing,' which could mean anything from product research to testing to brainstorming. Apple brainstorms and builds a lot of products it later trashes.
I agree, an Apple phone is almost inevitable: the market trend is clear, undoubtedly. Cell phone MP3 players are on the rise. It's obvious.
The issue here, though, is the horrible interpretation of market share data in that article. Apple's numbers are accurate, according to their parameters. If you want to include "all portable MP3 players," you would have to include laptops, PSPs, MP3-playing Walkman CD players, PDAs, etc. Apple's numbers are specifically focused on devices designed specifically to play music -- the iPod et al. And in that market, they're still King.
"I also have an MP3 playing phone, but would never use it for that purpose. Storage is too limited, the MP3 functions are poorly implemented, and transferring songs to it is a pain" -- tim
Very true, tim. I've fiddled with a few MP3 phones (a SLVR, one or two Windows Mobile devices, etc.), and they all share a common theme: working them is a royal pain. Everything, from copying music to listening to that music is tedious and full of unnecessary hassle. Even the SLVR, which communicates directly with iTunes, can be frustrating to set up if you don't get it exactly right the first time (and the iTunes phone interface itself is dog slow). Not to mention the storage problem...
"It all depends on what you decide to compare the iPod to (and why).
If you decide to sum up all MP3 playing devices, you should add:
COMPUTERS!!! (notebooks, portables and even desktops)
Cell phones
Car MP3 players
PDAs
Gaming devices that happen to play music, too
etc...
The comparison gets even harder as new iPods emerge. What will you compare a video iPod to? a portable DVD? a PDA?" -- Ken
That's true -- the article says Apple fails to include all portable MP3 players. A laptop is a portable MP3 player, is it not?
"Phones have Camera's too but I don't see people throwing away there £300 cannons to use there VGA quality camera pics." -- WinMacLin
Hmph. Why didn't I think of that?
"Can TUAW and everybody else please put a dead stop to giving Thurrott more attention? Thurrott this. Thurrott that. He says whatever to get attention, over and over again. I really don't understand it any more why this guy even gets an ounce of spotlight ... and most people are absolutely sick of him and the resulting debates / forum threads / blog entries etc. like these." -- icerabbit
Paul Thurrott is a respected industry pundit. People read and believe what he says. And to dispute something he writes is not hate mongering or unnecessary promotion -- it's encouraging debate on viable topics. While I don't always agree with him, I respect him and his insight -- and some things are certainly worth debating.
"I have to say that since I got my Samsung A900, I've stopped carrying my iPod on a daily basis. I started listening to podcasts on my commute and found that my phone handles this task quite well. I have an AppleScript that converts the podcasts to AAC and then I move them over to the phone via bluetooth. I have to carry the phone anyway and it's much smaller than my 3G iPod - about the same size as a Nano." -- Kilgore
I should give that phone a try. I think if the phone manufacturers can make the MP3 functionality simple and, you know, functional, they may have a chance at dethroning King 'Pod.
"Thurott doesn't go far enough - what about people who spontaneously burst into song? They are in effect a human Mp3 player - so, the ipod share goes lower - especially if you count insane people. As the Earth rotates, millions of people actually turn off their ipod to go to sleep - that's a market share loss every night! Potentially millions of those people could have a horrible nightmare and want to buy a WMA 128k flash player the next morning! Again, more market share losses." -- jbelkin
Have you ever considered a job in market share analysis?
"It all about the software. iTunes + iPod = simple." -- AC
Bingo!
"About the 14% market share. I assume you are willing to accept that musicphones are a fair rival to iPods, as Apple's own CFO Peter Oppenheimer just two days ago said so, and he felt the SonyEricsson Walkman phone is getting rather close to iPods - but of course not as good. Also Oppenheimer admitted Apple is planning an iPod phone." -- Tomi Ahonen
Whoa there, buddy. They didn't admit anything. They said they weren't 'sitting around doing nothing,' which could mean anything from product research to testing to brainstorming. Apple brainstorms and builds a lot of products it later trashes.
I agree, an Apple phone is almost inevitable: the market trend is clear, undoubtedly. Cell phone MP3 players are on the rise. It's obvious.
The issue here, though, is the horrible interpretation of market share data in that article. Apple's numbers are accurate, according to their parameters. If you want to include "all portable MP3 players," you would have to include laptops, PSPs, MP3-playing Walkman CD players, PDAs, etc. Apple's numbers are specifically focused on devices designed specifically to play music -- the iPod et al. And in that market, they're still King.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
RisingSunofNihon said 9:25AM on 7-21-2006
I would never use my phone as an MP3 player. Why load it up with songs that I can't transfer to a new phone or to my computer? Plus, the sound quality on my phone is crap anyway!
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Erik said 9:34AM on 7-21-2006
heh - I've heard this one go around more than a few times, and while technically you can play audio files from a phone or other PDA, the experience is absolutely awful. It's the little things that count for so much, like the automatic play position and play count integration, so you know which podcasts you've listened to, and if you pick up on iTunes later on after plugging in the iPod, you're exactly where you left off.
On the PDA/Smart phone front, I know a lot of people that are generally frustrated with the UI for the stuff the phones are _supposed_ to be designed for. Expecting them to be an intelligent media player on top of that is asking a lot. People often miss that the iTunes/iPod combo has less to do with the iTunes Music store than with the basic iTunes/iPod automatic syncing.
I've got better things to do with my time than manage the song files in a disk-based file hierarchy on my hard disk and a player or other device. I have a smart play list with unplayed podcasts that syncs when I plug and deletes the played ones with no intervention on my part.
I really tried to like using my Treo as my podcast player, but while it's a great phone and an awesome PDA, it just sucked rocks as a media player because it made me work at managing it.
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Carl Trimble said 9:40AM on 7-21-2006
I put the songs on my phone and tried to listen to them but my phone kept interrupting the songs! AGGGGHHHHHH!!!!
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matthew said 9:51AM on 7-21-2006
I've been using my SE W800i (with iTuneMyWalkman) syncing both music and posdcasts for months. 2mp camera, movies, google local, email, web surfing, calendar, etc, all make the W800i infinitely more functional than my iPods, which I've barely touched since I bought the w800i.
I'd wager that any iPod owner that used a w800i, or similar, would drop their iPod in a matter of days in favor of a multi-function device. This from a huge Apple fan.
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dvddesign said 9:59AM on 7-21-2006
The DVD industry never lumped secondary devices (game consoles or PC/MAC drives) as DVD players when counting total units so I think we should rule the phones out. Dedicated devices are really the best estimate of market share.
Otherwise you'd have cell phones crapping all over a dozen devices or more on their minutae capabilities.
Palm dominates PDA's? Nope, iPods have address books in them, so the marketshare's diluted.
Or if this is the case, then picture resolution doesn't matter to most people because the majority of digital photographers have a VGA camera as their "primary camera"
It's just stupid spin.
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Alwyn said 10:03AM on 7-21-2006
Well, Sony Ericsson's Walkman players are getting to become serious rivals and if Apple doesn't believe they are a serious threat then why are they, themselves, about to or thinking of launching an iPhone? Remember the ROKR, 100 song capacity? No didn't think you did.
The fact is a 4GB Walkman phone is on the way, (and with 1 million a month being sold, and rising this could be the next big thing.
A Walkman Phone with 1GB capacity is far more convenient than taking out two separate devices, which is what people will ultimately do,when they leave the home each day.
@Risingsunofnihon. Songs can be transferred onto your new phone and computer."
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Maimon Mons said 10:11AM on 7-21-2006
Also, most recent "Palm" style devices are also mp3 players. I used mine to play mp3s maybe 3-4 times. The interface sucks and is totally non-intuitive, and the touch screen is not made to use without looking directly at it.
A dedicated mp3 player all the way (Or my computer, of course ;-) )
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Ian Betteridge said 10:23AM on 7-21-2006
:rolleyes: Yes, that's certainly a scientific poll. On a Apple fan site. Hmm. Yes.
In fact, a global survey of nearly 7,000 people found that double the number listened to music on a phone than on a music player like an iPod (http://breakingnewsblog.com/mp3players/archives/worldwide_use_of_music_on_cell_phones_gaining_wide_acceptance)
Like I've said elsewhere, you lot might want to bury your heads in the sand - but thankfully, Apple doesn't.
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neale said 10:26AM on 7-21-2006
bring out the ipod phone and its a different story
i predict camera/mp3/phone will be one device soon
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Ian Betteridge said 10:28AM on 7-21-2006
Carl: "I put the songs on my phone and tried to listen to them but my phone kept interrupting the songs! AGGGGHHHHHH!!!!"
So when you were using your iPod, you missed all those calls? That's a shame :)
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david said 10:28AM on 7-21-2006
I would never use my phone as an mp3 player. my phone is for talking and texting. my shuffle is for walking to school/working in the lab. i would never buy a phone expecting to use its mp3 functions.
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Joel Kimble said 10:32AM on 7-21-2006
I can play mp3's on my phone and besides the difficulty in transferring them (since I use iTunes for managing all my mp3's) I'm not willing to sacrifice my phone's battery life for MP3 playing ability.
I'd rather carry two things around and know that if I kill the battery listening to music I'll still be able to make/receive calls.
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Alwyn said 10:49AM on 7-21-2006
@neale. That device is already here in many forms.
@david. So when your listening to music on your iPod, you've never missed an important call? :D
Also, the US is way behind Europe and Asia in multi-media device adoption - I would say by about 2 years!
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Peter said 11:06AM on 7-21-2006
I would gladly use a cell phone to listen yo music, in fact I would love to have one less thing to carry. I am starting to feel like Batman with a utility belt and all sorts of crap hanging around my waist. However, the software and device integration would have to be on a par with the elegance and ease of use of iTunes. I actually have a phone that I could use as a music player but I don't because there is no software.
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matthew said 11:08AM on 7-21-2006
"i predict camera/mp3/phone will be one device soon"
Nice. You're way ahead of your time ;-) Might try reading the post before commenting.
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byron church said 11:17AM on 7-21-2006
Somewhere , not far from here , Someone is putting the pieces together . Part iPod,Part Treo,Part lifedrive,any day now........................yep.............
gona be great.................
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consumer_q said 12:03PM on 7-21-2006
Do these mp3 playing phones that people like to listen to music on have some super-batteries? My phone would not last a half-day if I listened to music on it.
Nor does my phone: interface with my car stereo, play in rental cars (via iTrip), act as a large external HDD, interface with my still camera and pull off the photos for storage, and have the best user interface for portable media players out there.
I am personally not a big fan of all-in-one tech because as more stuff is added the interface becomes more and more cludgy. I dread the day apple decides that "we need to add more stuff!" to the iPod, because I feel that right now it has a nice balance - with its focus still music.
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Michael said 12:31PM on 7-21-2006
I don't even own a dedicated mp3 player - no need since my phone has 2gb in it and also does video, plus it has all the phone functions making it a wonderful all-in-one device.
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Leojmelsrub said 12:36PM on 7-21-2006
I think it's ironic that the same site that can work itself up into a frenzy at the mere hint of an iPhone (http://www.tuaw.com/2006/05/11/uncle-walt-says-apple-is-working-on-an-iphone/) can then turn around and in the very next breath, completely dismiss this article - which raises some very forward-looking points IMO. If you read the article the author is not dismissive of Apple as a brand, rather calls into question the future viability of the MP3 player as a standalone device (of which the iPod is the leading player in that market).
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Chris said 12:57PM on 7-21-2006
I got a Sony Ericsson w800i virtually as soon as it came out - I actually sold my iPod to get it and have never looked back - it's so much easier having both in one device.
Having tried all the apps to sync with iTunes and not being happy with any I actually ended up learning Java just to write my own! - That shows dedication....
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