Pagers, Sony Walkman are Antiques - What’s Next After Apple iPod

We have a small market in our town that mostly houses shops selling mobile phone accessories. It’s always impossible to find a free parking space in that market. Who would have imagined this a decade ago when cell phones were the size of cordless handsets and outgoing local calls from cell phones would set you back by Rs. 16 per minute. Such is the boom that Nokia, a mobile phone company, is now also the largest manufacturer of cameras in the world.

Some may say that the good old Walkman lost to the iPod because the latter is small and sleek - that is definitely one of the reasons but the other important factors that went in favor of the iPod are interactivity and ease of use. Even the default data formats have changes in the last few years. A lot of us will have trouble recalling the last time we paid a visit to that cassette tape shop in the neighborhood because web is fast becoming the new source of music.

But in the digital age, there are absolutely no guarantees. For instance, if Apple stops rolling out new innovations in their iPod line-up, it’s quite possible that iPods may soon meet the fate of Walkman - imagine a device from Company X that’s thinner than an iPod, can shoot HD quality video and 20 megapixel still images, has practically infinite storage space and so intuitive that even grandma can use it without reading the manual. Would you not consider ditching your iPod then ?

I think that’s the future - a single “all in one” device that keeps you connected as well as entertained and does everything for you excepting picking up children from school.