The Ubiquitous Music Player
Published by Ewan Spence at 9:59 UTC, November 25th 2008
Should a mobile phone that can play an MP3 be regarded as an MP3 player? That's the question Jemima Kiss asks over at The Guardian's Digital Content Blog. That total of 32.1 million MP3 players sold last year includes a significant percentage of smart(ish) phones, of the order of 75%, which makes the headline figure 'a little disingenuous'. I disagree. Read on for my thoughts....
One of the great pieces of party trivia you can come up with [what sort of parties do you go to, Ewan? - Ed] is to ask who is the largest manufacturer of cameras in the world, and watch as everyone struggles through the likes of Canon, Nikon and Kodak, before hitting the answer... Nokia. This is now generally accepted, even though it's likely that not everyone uses the camera on their phone. Why should it be any different for other technology on a mobile phone?
There is an argument that simply slapping an application into a phone doesn't mean it will be used, but over time the feature becomes less of a unique selling point and something that is expected in the phone. That takes time and it's unlikely that every commentator and analyst will agree on the exact tipping point. What is evident is that more and more people are using their mobile phone as their primary MP3/digital music player, and I think that at some point in 2009 we will pass the tipping point for audio.
Your phone is one of the most personal physical items that you have, something that is with you as you wake up, and there to help you into bed at night (at least mine is when I settle in with a nice eBook). Music is also one of the most personal things - tracks mean different things to different people. From a purely emotional level, the first cassette walkman and the tidal wave of personal music devices has made music a much more intimate experience.
Mix it in with your mobile phone, and it should be no surprise that I think the mobile phone will become the de facto number one choice for personal music.
The lines are becoming very blurred - the iPhone may be the most obvious example of this, growing into a smartphone from a line of music players, rather than the more traditional starting point of a regular mobile phone, but the convergence long promised and promoted will not be held back by quibbling over the statistics.
Phones are shipping with standard stereo 3.5mm jacks, with support for stereo Bluetooth headsets, with enough memory to hold a significant amount of music, with battery life that gives you confidence that a full day of listening to music is not going to leave you with no power as you head home from the office, and people are now expecting to see a music player on their phone. Yes, there will be many that are avoiding using their phone as the player, but as capacities and capabilities increase, more and more people will make that decision - coupled of course with older players being defunct or broken.
So back to that 32 million figure... 8 million standalone portable MP3 players out there is impressive and 24 million (smart)phones that can be MP3 players. Even if they're not all being used, that's a huge market that just needs a little push (or marketing) to get them using their phones - because you can be sure that there are a lot more home computers out there with MP3 files on them ready to be taken out into the world in someone's back pocket.
The question now is what commodity the collective of manufacturers will attack next...
-- Ewan Spence, Nov 2008
Categories: Editorial Thoughts
Platforms: General
News Discussion
MP3 is so used that it's become impossible to measure how many people own and use compatible devices. It's like trying to track how many use PDF documents or SMS messaging, it might be possible in theory but it would be a mammoth task.
Yes, a lot of the time people don't use such features if they're secondary to the device's main purpose, but when a format is SO widely compatible even a small percentage of users would probably outweigh those using dedicated players. Phones alone sell 1 billion a year, so if 10% of users listen to music on their phones that would still be 100 million a year, more than the number that buy standalone players.
i don't think i'll buy another ipod...
If only you could "rate" songs and have gapless playback... it would be perfect...
while cameraphones still lag somewhat behind standalone cameras, music phones are almost always actually superior to standalones.
I realise its subjective but I find people are now realizing the advantages of keypads for searching songs not to mention huge screens. I personally find nokia's more comfortable music players than the almighty ipods.
Now I have a Nokia E71 with 8Gb card and Sennheiser CX300 and thatīs fine (I will go for a 16gb card as soon as possible)
From Argentina, GG
Its not the people's problem cauz who will pay for something he already has? its the advertising problem.
by the way the article is good...only replace the ugliest phone in the earth photo "N91" by N81 and t will be excellent.