After the original Apple iPhone came along, all the world’s capabilities ended up in one place: Your smartphone. There’s nothing exactly wrong with it as things have become more convenient than ever but the market for dedicated devices surely has suffered. Be it game consoles, point-and-shoot cameras, PDAs, or pocket computers, all have seen their sales slide.
Music player market has also suffered terribly, seeing a third of its market vanish over the past 12 months according to an NPD report. The reason for that is simple: the music player is everywhere. Smartphones, tablets or smartwatches, you name it. All come with one.
Apple’s iPod still leads the pack by capturing 72% of all the market share but even it has seen the sales decline. What’s even worrying is that the product which brought Apple to where it belongs now is now seeing a question mark over its future. Still, don’t expect it to be axed anytime soon.
However, the report does say that the iPod Classic – which was last updated in 2009 and is the only hard-disk based iPod left – might see a revival given the fact that it comes with twice the storage found in the largest-capacity iPhone and the recent trend in favour of high-quality audio.
iPod nano and shuffle are also favourable since both come much, much cheaper than any of the iPhones, while also being lighter.
